Nerdist » Luke Y. Thompsonhttp://nerdist.com
Sun, 02 Aug 2015 22:30:27 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.3Child’s Play: On the ENDER’S GAME Set With Sir Ben Kingsleyhttp://nerdist.com/childs-play-on-the-enders-game-set-with-sir-ben-kingsley/
http://nerdist.com/childs-play-on-the-enders-game-set-with-sir-ben-kingsley/#commentsWed, 30 Oct 2013 23:30:34 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=87744This is part 2 of Luke’s visit to the set of Ender’s Game. Read the first here.

After we thoroughly inspected the location, we got to sit back and watch scenes be shot on it. Brief as they were, it was something to see. Ben Kingsley, as battle veteran Mazer Rackham, was on set alongside Asa Butterfield (Ender), with whom he had previously acted in Hugo, and yes, everyone addressed him as “Sir Ben.” But he returned the manners – after every successful take, and each note given by (director Gavin) Hood, he would always say, “Right, right, thank you very very much.” (If you’ve seen Time Bandits, imagine John Cleese’s Robin Hood, minus sarcasm.) Conversely, if he missed a mark, he’d apologize profusely. “Frightfully sorry, old chap. Terribly sorry; I won’t do that again.” It should be noted that Kingsley’s face is covered in Maori tattoos, which could lead fans of the book to wonder how Ender does not recognize him at first, given that he’s studied old videos of this hero. The producers won’t say how – their pre-viz for the Mazer flashback battle make his tats clear – but they did say they’ve figured out a way to preserve that reveal.

And then, between takes, we were ushered into a small cell that was part of the elaborate underground Eros set, and got to talk to Sir Ben himself. Here is the conversation that ensued:

Question: How long does it take to put the tattoos on?

Ben Kingsley: It takes an hour and a half. I sit very still.

Q: What was it about this story and this world that attracted you to the part?

BK: I was completely ignorant of the novels and the story, so I came to it very fresh, which is probably a good thing; I had no preconceptions of what it was going to be about, and whom I was to portray. I liked the combination of the warrior from the past and the warrior of the future. These are some very ancient markings on me – thousands of years old, and yet it’s projected into the future, so I like that continuity.

Nerdist: Do you feel more of an affinity for science-fiction directors now that you’ve portrayed the original one?

BK: Which director was that? Georges Melies? Well-spotted, sir. Well, I do, yes. It takes a tremendously uncluttered, inventive mind to see through the present and into the future. Very often, bad science fiction is completely locked into the present and they have no perception – who could? – of the future. It takes a great imagination to transcend the limits of what we know; we tend to think within the limits of what we know, and I think Gavin and the wonderful writer have transcended our narrow limits. We have no idea what the future holds for us. We’re guessing. But it’s good to be curious and to speculate on what might happen.

Q: What has it been like working with Asa again?

BK: We have a very good working relationship. He’s pure, he’s simple, he’s uncluttered, he’s highly intelligent, so there’s no wasted time on set.

Q: Do you think he’s changed as an actor since Hugo?

BK: Yes; he’s six inches taller. But the essentials are exactly the same, and they probably will be for life.

Q: Have you given him any advice?

BK: That’s by osmosis. You never give each other advice. The wonderful thing about making a film is that it’s collaborative, and if you are alert to what’s around you, you will learn and you’ll probably teach, but it’s not a conscious process.

Q: What about this production has impressed you most?

BK: Collaboration. So many people out there getting one perfect shot and scene. Different departments, different heads of departments, and to see it all being coordinated is a great sight.

Q: It’s fun to see you switch from The Dictator to this – do you purposefully choose these roles to switch them up?

BK: Well, change is one of the most exciting things about my life. Every role’s different, every director’s different, every script’s different. If you’re blessed, it’s going to be a bonus and a part of your life, and actors tend to play the same role over and over again. But I’ve been really fortunate. It’s great to change.

Q: Is the fight scene between you and Ender reproduced, and if so, what it was it like having a kid beat you up?

BK: Ah…I beat him up. Yeah.

And on that note, he went back to the fray. For us, there was still more, like the rooms full of costumes and props. Mini-maquettes of the Formics revealed them to be like a cross between giant amber-colored ants and the Brood from X-Men, but with 12 legs rather than six, the top forelegs being stumpy like T-rex’s. One of the unusual and potentially frustrating aspects of the movie for newcomers is that we won’t ever really see these aliens in action, but know them only by what they’ve left behind – an organic-looking society with a continuity of vision that’s inspired by fractals and seashells, and designed as if it were made by swarms of giant insects secreting and licking things into shape. In the flashback reels of Rackham’s triumph, their warships look akin to flying horseshoe crabs.

Also on display: zero-G barf bags, clear computer tablets (think iPads made of a block of a clear plexiglass; and no, they don’t actually work), the latex bug mask that Ender’s brother Peter always makes him wear at home, and a look at the monitor removal device, which looks something like what you’d imagine if Alfred Molina’s Dr. Octopus designed a dentist’s chair.

The costumes are very tight and form-fitting, so as not to show wrinkles. though they were designed with certain hidden overlaps in mind to allow for the young actors to have growth spurts. The tightness led to one awkward note for Aramis Knight, who plays Bean. “You know what? One of the wardrobe ladies told me the other day, and this is a true story, I’m not making it up, she told me ‘You need to stop playing basketball, because you’re going to get bigger, and this is not going to fit! Just wait two weeks!’ I was like ‘Eww… I don’t know if I can do that one.'” The clear visors on the helmets are digitally added later, so as not to affect the lighting.

The costume designers read every blog, and recall a mini-outcry when an image leaked of some of the kids wearing socks, yet they went through the canon of Ender stories and did indeed find a justification for it, one bit of text that mentioned socks.
And speaking of blogs, one of the biggest omissions from the movie simply for time is the subplot in which Ender’s brother and sister basically become proto-bloggers (the term didn’t exist at the time, but the concept was nailed by Card years before it happened) with the pen-names of Locke and Demosthenes. “I just can’t do all of those scenes; it would be seven hours!,” says Hood. How, then, do you get to see big brother Peter transforming from bully to sympathetic character, if most of his storyline is deleted? “Now in the book, there’s Demosthenes, and you’re told, and it’s reflected, and the author explains in the author’s voice how Peter’s undergoing change. I’ve tried to do it without giving it away, and had to do it in a matter of about three very economical scenes. We meet Peter at the beginning of the movie, and he has everything I think that the book has of that aggression, and bully and nastiness. But if you were to interview Peter, and say ‘Why are you doing this?’ he would say ‘Because this kid has to toughen up or he’s not going to make it!’ He’s engaged in what he would justify as ‘tough love.’

“And at some point in the film, somewhere in the third act, you will find a scene in which that idea presents itself, and may or may not satisfy the question. It has to be addressed, A:, in a more economical way than the book does, because it’s Ender’s Game and I’ve got two hours, and B:, without an author’s voice explaining it, and so I’ve tried to do it in a very subtle scene between him and Valentine, which is not a scene from the book.” On the plus side for fans, it was hinted that Locke and Demosthenes may make an appearance in viral marketing for the film.

One of the key moments in the book is a fight scene that takes place in the shower between two fully unclothed boys. In a PG-13 movie – heck, in any movie! – that would seem to present some problems. But fear not – it’s uncompromised, intact and completely (hat tip to Hard ‘n Phirm) not illegal. Asa Butterfield explains: “It was one of the first scenes I did with Moises. Back at the hotel, we were talking – I’m gonna do a back flip over you or something. Of course it’s a lot more realistic than that, but we had our fantasies of how epic it would be. It was difficult to shoot because they could never show me naked – they had to always shoot me from the waist up, but yeah, it’s an amazing scene.” The fighting styles learned by the kids included aikido, MMA and Krav-Maga.

At the end of the day, on the way out, we observed the construction of the Formic “Cathedral,” out of layers upon layers of what looked like Styrofoam. The sheer scale of these sets was most impressive – fans of practical visuals will find a lot to enjoy. Whether or not there’s a religious element to this climactic set will have to be left to the imagination; it was decided that there was no easy way to introduce the concept of an alien religion that late in the game, with so much else going on. We never did catch sight of Harrison Ford, who plays the key role of Col. Graff, the man who recruits Ender, but after a day of wondrous sights and sounds, it did become clear that the concept here is larger than any one big name.

Does Summit have its next big franchise to fill the Twilight void? We’ll find out this Friday when Ender’s Game hits theaters and IMAX 3D. For more on Ender’s Game, check out the Nerdist Podcast with star Harrison Ford.

New Orleans is known for voodoo, Mardi Gras, Cajun culture, and the Superdome; lesser known, perhaps, is the massive NASA facility a little ways outside of town. Giant hangars are flanked by things like space rockets that have been sliced in half as if by a superhero with perfectly aimed heat vision, and access requires a government ID, in addition to the invitation of the Summit publicist in our company.

Inside the gigantic facilities, spacefaring gear of a very different sort is being made. This is the set of Ender’s Game, the long-awaited adaptation of Orson Scott Card’s seminal sci-fi novel about kids learning to fight wars in an orbiting space station. For those who haven’t read it, a brief synopsis: Earth has narrowly managed to survive an alien invasion after one heroic jet pilot named Mazer Rackham pulled a Hail Mary move and destroyed the mothership (Randy Quaid’s last sacrifice at the end of Independence Day was undoubtedly inspired by this). Expecting a vengeful counterattack from the bug-like creatures, Earth governments begin training particularly qualified children for space combat, so that they’ll be ready for round two if and when it occurs. The bulk of the film takes place in Battle School, as protagonist Ender Wiggin and his fellow trainees learn how to strategize and fight in zero gravity situations; when an unexpected turn occurs late in the story, the book stands revealed as metaphor for those soldiers, who look on combat as a game until the moment they must finally face the real-world consequences of their actions.

If you’re not familiar with the book, I suggest you be very cautious in reading further. Fans want to know how true the movie will be, and after visiting the set, I have a pretty good idea, up to and including what the last shot of the movie is. That part, I will not reveal; however, anyone wishing to go spoiler-free for a story that’s been around since 1985 has been warned.

The man at the helm of this adaptation is South African director Gavin Hood, who previously gave us the thug-turned-babysitter drama Tsotsi and X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Naturally, I had to ask him about his affinity for lead characters conditioned to a life of violence who question their destinies.

“I was in the military; I was drafted when I was 17 years old,” he says, “and it had a profound effect on me. And when I read Ender’s Game, many of those feelings, a lot of those feelings – that you were very much a number in an organization with strong authority figures that you were not supposed to question, and yet feeling that you wanted to rebel against it – I connected with this book in many ways, based on feelings and experiences that I’ve had. And I also really think that the ideas and themes of leadership in the book and (hopefully) in the movie are timeless and classic, and what makes good leadership? What makes bad leadership? What makes responsible leadership? So what I love about the book is that it’s both an epic adventure, it’s a fantastic (for me) coming-of-age story, not just for the lead character but in many ways for all of the characters, especially obviously for Ender, and I’m interested in those, if you like, defining moments in a character’s life, where they choose a path, or are compelled to reflect on a path they’ve chosen, and maybe change it.”

With no shortage of ideas, he expands on that thought: “So those are fascinating moments to me, those defining moments of encountering something where you are truly confronted with yourself and with aspects of yourself that you may not necessarily like, and you have to face up to those aspects, and then figure it out. So there’s that, and then of course it’s set in this fantastical universe of space, which is visually exciting. And the idea of many young people who’ve read this book, they way they talk about it passionately; so often there are many films that we go to and they’re fantastic and they’re fun and they’re wonderful, but it’s like ‘That was great, do you want to get pizza?’ As opposed to a story like Ender’s Game, where kids really talk about it, ‘Well, what do you think about the way Ender made that decision?’ and ‘Is that right?’, ‘Is he too violent?’ and these are important conversations, I think, for young people to engage in, in an exciting way, and if you can deliver that kind of debate and conversation in an exciting, visually powerful way, then I think you’re getting a little more than just spectacle. If we can combine spectacle with a good old-fashioned argument afterwards, then that’s kind of fun.”

Many have tried to adapt the book over the years, but Card has rejected a great deal of those attempts when producers asked to either make the kids into older teenagers with romantic subplots for more marketability, or change key aspects of the climax so that it doesn’t have the same sting in its tail. There are differences in this adaptation, but they’re primarily aesthetic and/or condensing for the sake of time. “In the book, the kids range in age from 6 to I think 13 – well, that’s another challenge,” says Hood. “So do you cast a 6 year old, and then an 8 year old and then a 10 year-old and a 12 year-old and a 13?” The apparent answer is no – he cast Hugo star Asa Butterfield as Ender, True Grit‘s Hailee Steinfeld as his friend Petra, and an ensemble cast of other pre-adolescents who were all put through their paces in Space Camp and an abbreviated military boot camp. “We learned a lot about astronauts, team-building exercises,” says Butterfield. “There’s something called aviation challenge, in which we went in these fighter jets – sort of practicing for the simulation room, almost. We performed missions in which we’d have to communicate with each other in fighter planes, or blow up a nuclear facility or something.”

Other key changes: the space station now has only one battle simulation room, and it’s a large, transparent sphere at the center of the station, with deep space as a backdrop. The passage of time since the ’80s has necessitated some others – the Cold War is no longer a plot factor, and the finale, which once took place on an actual, charted asteroid called Eros, now takes place on a distant world that’s an abandoned colony for the alien Formics. Yes, Formics – early books had the ant-like adversaries originally named “Buggers,” until Card, a conservative Mormon, was finally made aware that that word had another meaning he hadn’t anticipated. At any rate, Eros will probably not even be referred to by that name on screen, and it also now serves as the setting for the book’s all-important final revelation as well.

The battle room, which we saw being taken down, was mostly green screen; however, it was a practical set, and rather than use CG to float the kids into zero-gravity battles, much was achieved with wire-work and the guidance of several Cirque du Soleil members. But while the Cirque team advised, the kids ended up doing nearly all of their own stunts, with some devices invented just for this movie (the crew hopes the Academy will recognize this when the 2014 Oscars honor special effects). Child labor guidelines officially say no kid can be in a wire harness for more than 5 minutes at a time, and physical training should not last more than 30 minutes per day, but these kids were unstoppable, testing out the wires for fun on their down time because they enjoyed it so much. When it came time to shoot, Moises Arias (Bonzo) even surpassed some of the Cirque team at simulating weightlessness, while Aramis Knight (Bean) was the showoff of the group, always wanting to do flips and flying.

The space station sets look not unlike other things we’ve seen before in sci-fi – “corridors and pipes and airlocks,” as the production design team called the visual style, but with some twists; they got to use leftover NASA junk parts to augment the set (and then had to give most of it back afterward!) and now, they noted, “it looks like a spaceship should… so now, when you see kids in that environment, it’s a different experience, because you’re used to it in a grown-up context.” The floor of the set was slightly curved to suggest a ring-like structure. As for the military costumes, think Star Trek: Enterprise – mostly gray with selective color piping.

The set that was most active that day was the Eros cave in which the final battle simulation takes place – to be more appreciably cinematic, this sequence no longer isolates Ender in his own room, but in a massive staging area not unlike Cerebro in the X-men movies. A catwalk leads out into the middle, to a platform where Ender and several others can stand, while all his team are seated down below, linked up to each other. The cave stalactites and stalagmites will be green screened in, but the catwalk, rows of seats below, and observation deck above were all very real, and convincing down to the last detail. Some movie sets look fake in real life until they’re lit well, but this looked like a genuine space station section.

Stay tuned for more from the set, plus an interview with Ben Kingsley in Part 2, coming soon!

This article was written by former Nerdist contributor Luke Y. Thompson. You can catch his work as Editor-In-Chief of Topless Robot.

]]>http://nerdist.com/game-on-a-look-at-enders-game-with-gavin-hood/feed/5Figures & Speech: Sculptor Spotlight on Hector Arcehttp://nerdist.com/figures-speech-sculptor-spotlight-on-hector-arce/
http://nerdist.com/figures-speech-sculptor-spotlight-on-hector-arce/#commentsWed, 12 Dec 2012 20:00:25 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=62434Every good toy or collectible statue begins with a great sculpt, though with the toy market under financial strain, that’s becoming less and less true, as lines start to rely more and more on shared body parts and canny repaints. That’s why it’s a pleasure to meet a guy like Hector Arce, a sculptor inspired by some of our favorite toy lines to make custom pieces on commission. It’s a gig that’s made him fans online, and has caught the eyes of folks in high places; as we spoke to him, he was preparing to do some movie design work. Until that hits, he’s available to make you some cool collectibles of your own, and has even paid it forward by creating a web series that teaches the basics of what he does. We sat down to speak with Hector over coffee, and found him to be just as much of a fanboy as we are.

Luke Y. Thompson: Tell me what you do.

Hector Arce: I am a sculptor and a designer/painter. That’s what I do. I mainly sculpt figures and post-production maquettes for movies, when I get the gig.

LYT: When you say figures, are we talking toys?

HA: We’re talking more maquettes, collectible statues. None of my stuff is poseable at all; it’s more along those lines. I do a lot of comic book stuff, a lot of fantasy dragons.

LYT: Any Sideshow statutes? What kind of stuff have you put out?

HA: Actually, I haven’t. All my stuff is – it’s all my own things; I’ve never done anything for Sideshow or anything. I mean, Sideshow is amazing! I wish I could at some point be at the quality of Sideshow, but right now it’s just me selling my own stuff, like figures I’ve done.

LYT: So you’ve just done unique stuff?

HA: Yeah, just one-of-a-kind things, and if someone wants – usually what I will do is someone will contact me or come to me and say “Hey, I have this design. How much do you charge to sculpt it?” I usually just do commissions for people like that, and I like to keep it at a low cost so that when you’re a starving artist, and you want to get something out there, like something to show, a figure or something like that, it’s not going to cost you an arm and a leg. I’m trying to keep it fairly low, considering what it is.

LYT: Are there issues regarding what you can and can’t sculpt? Like if someone wanted Spawn, could you do that, without getting in trouble from McFarlane?

HA: I’m not going to say that I haven’t done stuff like that before, but for the most part, I keep those very, very, very low. I hardly do stuff like that. If someone asked me to make them a Spiderman, or something like that, I’d probably say “You could just go buy a figure; you don’t have to hire me to sculpt one.” I usually do stuff that’s more like someone has their own comic book line coming out or something like that, or they have their own designs and they want to do a presentation or a pitch, a movie pitch or something, I’ll sculpt their designs for them.

LYT: You mentioned movie stuff. Are there movies that are out there that you’ve done work for?

HA: Not at the moment, no. Everything’s in production or post-production.

LYT: It’s kind of top-secret right now?

HA: Yeah, I can’t say. It’s mainly stuff with Legendary Pictures. I can say that, but their herd of ninjas will not let me talk about what I’ve worked on with them.

LYT: Well, “herd of ninjas” sounds like a good starting point.

HA: Right? I’ve always wanted to do this whole thing with ninjas, just the scenery, like an old Japanese building, and have a herd of ninjas flying at this one dude, capturing the moment, and him slicing some guy’s head off. That’d be cool!

LYT: I always thought the problems with ninja sculptures is trying to capture a mid-air pose. The Spawn vs. Cy-Gor, when they were in mid-air, when the peg on that finally broke, I was so unhappy.

HA: I remember that! I had that. I still have, probably, 50 Spawn figures in a box, because there’s no room for it in my new apartment. I used to collect. That was the main thing that inspired me to get started.

LYT: That was in The 40-Year Old Virgin.

HA: Yeah, it was, I remember – it was in the background. Yeah, he had a lot of McFarlane stuff in the background.

LYT: I thought “That’s uncharacteristic. That isn’t what he would collect.” Some monsters and the Six Million Dollar Man – OK. But he didn’t seem like a McFarlane guy.

HA: I know. I think someone just thought it looked cool and stuck it in the background, like “Oh, this looks pretty sweet!” But that was a cool figure; I had it.

LYT: What were the first figures that you ever collected?

HA: The first figures that I collected were Ninja Turtles. My mom bought me my first Leonardo; it was one of those big ones, the 20-inch ones, the rubber/vinyl ones, whatever they were made out of. And then from there I just got everything. I had the sewer system, I had the Technodrome, I had the van, the blimp; I had everything! And then from there, I just went off. Ghostbusters was next; G.I. Joe, Transformers, you name it. Power Rangers! I still have all of my swords.

LYT: Where do you keep them?

HA: They’re in storage now.

LYT: My room is overflowing with stuff.

HA: I try to keep mine separate. I could totally do – what’s that show called? The toy show where that guy goes around and looks at your toys and goes “I’m going to buy this off of you!” Toy Hunter, or something like that? He could look in my storage room and be like “WHOA!”

LYT: Mine are all loose. They’re worth almost nothing to anyone, except someone who wants to play with them. I used to, every year, just give a box of toys to charity.

HA: Yeah, I mean, when I was a kid, I opened most of my toys and I played with them. Not a lot of mine are in boxes, except the first Spawn that I ever got. That’s still in its box. But I don’t know how much that’s worth. (laughs)

LYT: Do you still collect? Are you going to buy the Ninja Turtles Lego sets?

HA: No. Those Lego sets are cool! I want The Lord of the Rings one. Those are sweet! And the Marvel ones, and the DC stuff they did are cool. But now I don’t really collect. If I ever want something, I just make it! I’ll be like, “Oh, I kind of like this Spider-Man fighting the lizard. Let me just sculpt it.” I’ll keep it in my room – that’s mine! (laughs)

LYT: How long does something like that take?

HA: It depends on the piece. If someone says, “You have a week to finish a 3 foot statute,” then I’ll make it happen somehow. Normally, it takes about a month to get something done. You know – if you want it molded and cast in plastic, and all that stuff.

LYT: When did you decide after collecting all these toys that making them was what you wanted to do? Did your parents encourage or discourage that pursuit?

HA: My mom was always encouraging, to the point where she was saying “Oh, you’re a great artist, that’s OK, but are you going to be a doctor, are you going to be a lawyer, an accountant, an architect?” Something of societal value, I guess. But I started doing it, because it was pretty much a prerequisite to take. I was an art major, and I took it, and then I was like “OH! This is awesome!” I just kind of fell into it. I was already collecting toys all my life; I might as well just make my own toys, my own figures, instead of spending money on it. And then they’re unique. And one day, I was at my school, and they put my stuff on display, and people started buying it. And then I was like, “OK. I guess I could maybe make money off of this?” And then I made a site, and it just kind of went from there.

LYT: Do you make a comfortable living now?

HA: I wouldn’t say that. It is what it is. I still have a day job. But I’m hoping at one point that it will become a comfortable living!

LYT: How long have you been doing this professionally?

HA: About 2 years. So I’ve got a ways to go, I suppose. Still paying my dues! But I was lucky enough to have some people at Legendary recognize my work.

LYT: How did they recognize it?

HA: They saw my stuff on Deviant Art, I think, or some people had been posting my things on message boards – I wasn’t exactly sure how they came into contact with it – but a secretary sent me an e-mail, and it was like “Come in, and we’re going to work on these movies,” and it was cool

LYT: What are your favorite kinds of things to sculpt?HA: It depends on my mood. Right now, I really want to sculpt – you remember Dino Riders?

LYT: Yeah.

HA: I want to sculpt the T-Rex, with all the weapons, and I forget the bad guy’s name, but I want to do that; I don’t know why, but it just hit me. “Dino Riders – I want to sculpt that!” So that’s probably what I’m going to do next. (laughs) It depends on my mood. There will be days where I’m like, “I kinda want to sculpt. I’ll just sculpt Venom,” or, “I want to make a new dragon,” or something. I’ve made a few dragons of my own designs.

LYT: What about something like a dad sitting at his desk at work – would that still be fun, or would it be less interesting?

HA: It would be less interesting, I suppose, but it would be a challenge, because I don’t normally do that sort of stuff. All of my stuff is fantasy. It’s all toys, sci-fi stuff, so when I get into something serious like that, or something that has to be done accurately, to match the anatomy and stuff, that’s a little more tedious, but I’m open to it. Let’s get it done.

LYT: Do you get a lot of requests for custom likenesses, like “Do me as a superhero”?

HA: I’ve gotten a few of those, and I’ve done that. I’ve gotten people who’ve designed random things. When I first started, all of my clients were from Europe, and Japan, and there was one guy who wanted this weird creature sculpted that kind of looked like him, but it was a cross between him and a Digimon and a really buff man. It was really strange, and he specifically wanted everything accurate to his body, and I was like “OK, let’s get it done!”

LYT: There’s probably going to be readers out here who are saying “I’d like to get that done,” so what would you charge somebody for something like that?

HA: It depends on the size of the piece, and the complexity, and that sort of stuff. But usually what I charge, starting rate for a 12” inch figure, I would say from $500 to $1,000.

LYT: Is that based on size, regardless of complexity?

HA: The complexity would then increase from $500 to $1,000, and we’d go from there. So the size is how much material I’m using, and when it gets to complexity, it’s about how many hours I’m putting into making this.

LYT: Have you ever wanted to design toys as well?

HA: Yeah, of course, I’ve always wanted to do that kind of stuff. For me, it’s more like I wanted to do some stuff with having my own line of toys at some point, my own collectible figures. I’ve been so busy with doing other people’s work that have had to put that aside. But I eventually want to do that. I definitely want to put out a line, maybe of dragons; something that I really love making.

LYT: Do you have any sculpting influences? You’ve mentioned McFarlane, so presumably that would be like Kyle Windrix and the Four Horsemen, but is there anybody else?

HA: Honestly, I could go back to when I was a kid, and I saw art work by Bernini, in the Baroque period – his stuff was so dramatic and, it was so different from the Renaissance artists, who were just focused on anatomy, and capturing the perfect human body, whereas when the Baroque period came around, everything was turned around, and they were like “Let’s take everything that we’ve learned from the Renaissance, and capture a moment in time.” They had all these pieces where there was tension, there was drama, there was movement – that inspired me to pursue art, in general. Now when I do my sculptures, I try to capture movement, I try to make it something that’s not just a static figure, I try to make stuff that looks like it was captured in a moment, like a photograph.

LYT: It seems like we’re coming to an end of a movement, but there was a moving to things that are simpler, things that look more like anime. Is that a sculpting style you’re interested in, or are you more interested in detailed work?

HA: I have nothing against the simpler stuff, it’s fine. It requires – you would think it would take less time to do a simpler thing, but capturing those smooth angles and everything takes time. I would still prefer a more detailed approach, because that’s just how I am, but you can’t go wrong with those little Mini-Mates; those things are cool.

LYT: I always felt like, in the ’80s, they made the toy first, and then the cartoon. Now they make the cartoon first, and the toys look like a cartoon. In the old days, the Transformers toys were way more detailed than the cartoon, but now it’s just not as cool.

HA: No, it’s not. The difference – I remember back then, I had Optimus Prime, or Grimlock, or something like that, it was like “Whoa, this is cool!” And then the cartoon was just like blocks – super simplified. They didn’t look as cool as they did as a toy. But now, you’re right – if you look at Transformers Prime now, the toys look just like the show. There’s no difference, and I guess as a kid you don’t care, but as an adult, it’s like, “Ah, well. It looks like what it is.” There’s nothing special about it, really.

LYT: I always cared, even as a kid. I always preferred the more realistic movie-style rendition of any character, rather than the comic book style.

HA: Yeah. I mean, they’re harder to do, and they require a different level of skill to capture that, but when I grew up, all I was collecting when I was in high school, I was just collecting Spawn figures. For me it was like, I fell in love with the detail and how dirty they looked, and all the little tiny things. I studied the figures. You can see tiny little scales on top of other little scales on top of other little scales – it’s crazy what they did with those.

LYT: Have you worked with laser scanning?

HA: No, I have not. I have actually not even touched the 3D computer medium at all, which is something that I should probably do! (laughs)

LYT: When you start working on movies, that’ll probably come into play, because they’ll scan the props.

HA: Yeah, I mean I did do work for this company that did knives, and they also did rings, and they had me sculpt a dragon skull, and then they scanned it, and then they shrunk it down into a little ring. That’s as far as I’ve gone with scanning or lasers or anything like that, and I didn’t even do any of that – they did it for me. I sculpted a skull that was probably 12 inches big, and they just shrunk it down and made it the size of a ring.

LYT: That has to have made for very fine detail.

HA: It does. It retained every detail.

LYT: So what would your advice be to a kid who may want to get into the same line of work?

HA: My best advice would be to be patient. Do what you’re doing, and believe in what you’re doing, and as long as you are patient with it, and keep plugging – use the social media, that’s what really helps! That is what has gotten me more noticed throughout the years, is using Facebook – I don’t use Twitter, but (laughs) – using Deviant Art, using whatever you like, just get your work out there, and eventually someone will take notice.

LYT: I almost feel like we’re getting to a saturation point with social media.

HA: Yeah, it’s kind of a double-edged sword. It’s really helpful, but at the same time it’s kind of getting this weird stigma now, where it’s uncool to use it, or to even go by it anymore, but it still helps. Most of the people still use it, most people still notice it.

LYT:It’s better than before – as a writer, I remember doing zines and just handing out photocopies, before there were blogs…

HA: Yeah, exactly. I mean, as an artist, back in the day, there was no way of me even showing myself, really, other than actually going somewhere and physically showing them my sculptures or my pictures, but now I can just throw everything on line, and say “This is what I do. If you want to look at it, great. If you don’t, I don’t care. If you like it, cool! If you don’t, it is what it is.”

LYT: If you could be commissioned to sculpt any character in all of fiction, or even real life, what would it be?

HA: That’s a tough question. There are so many things I would do. I would love to do…(thinking)… I don’t know…maybe Predator fighting Gremlins. It’s a fantasy! I’ve always loved Gremlins, I love Predator, and why not?

LYT: Who wins?

HA: The Gremlins. There’s so many! (laughs) It would be caught in the moment where so many are attacking him that he’s about to set off his little bomb. Like, that’s it – everyone loses!

For more on Hector Arce, catch up with him at Facebook (all featured images above and more can be found there) and Instagram (he does not Tweet). This will be the last Figures & Speech column from me, as I’m moving onward to a new job – keep up with me on Twitter at @LYTrules for further info.

]]>http://nerdist.com/figures-speech-sculptor-spotlight-on-hector-arce/feed/0LYT Review: Because it’s “Les Miz,” and it’s…AAAAAWEsome!http://nerdist.com/lyt-review-because-its-les-miz-and-its-aaaaawesome/
http://nerdist.com/lyt-review-because-its-les-miz-and-its-aaaaawesome/#commentsWed, 12 Dec 2012 00:30:37 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=62269Not to belabor the WWE/Mike Mizanin joke too much – though that is kinda my thing – I look around at the other reviews of Les Miserables that have emerged, and my response is: “Really. Really? Really. Reeeeeally?” There’s a cynicism there that’s hard to fathom. And this is coming from a guy who has never been a big musical fan.

Like many others of my generation, I suspect, I never particularly “got” Rodgers & Hammerstein, Sondheim, or whoever else. I only finally learned how to appreciate the musical form thanks to Trey Parker, whose South Park movie and its predecessor Cannibal: The Musical followed the traditional conventions to a tee (even aping Les Miz in the “La Resistance” number) while being completely hilarious throughout. Then Tim Burton did Sweeney Todd, and I was kinda down with that too, even though it wasn’t all that comedic. Unlike in something like Chicago, to my relief, the songs had clever rhymes and some wit.

From what I’ve gleaned of Les Miz peripherally, it seems like the Lord of the Rings of musicals – an epic play everybody’s been waiting to see turned into a massive-budget cinematic magnum opus. And it has been, indeed. From the opening shots of a gigantic ship being towed into dock by slaves on ropes to its finale in the French revolution, this is not a movie that does things by half. Even in the smaller, intimate moments, the camera stays put on actors who sing their hearts out as they attempt (mostly with success) to make their voices and emotions the equal of all the special effects exploding all around. Yes, it’s bombastic, unironic, and quite clearly expensive. If you can’t accept that, it’s not the movie for you. But if you can take in the film’s operatic world as presented, you’ll be taken on a ride well worth the assaults on your senses.

In case you missed reading the book in English class, or seeing the ’90s nonmusical version with Liam Neeson and Geoffrey Rush, Les Miserables is the story of Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman here), a French peasant who steals a loaf of bread and is hounded forever after by stickler-for-the-law Inspector Javert (Russell Crowe). This film begins with Valjean about to end his prison sentence, only to be marked as a dangerous criminal for the rest of his life, unable to find employment and required to check in constantly with his captors. Instead he runs away, and after receiving an unexpected act of kindness reinvents himself as “Mr. La Mer” and becomes a successful businessman [UPDATE: GM in comments below clarifies that in fact “When Valjean assumes a new identity, he becomes M. le maire, the Mayor of the town.”], though not one who always runs a tight ship, as an employee named Fantine (Anne Hathaway) is cruelly dismissed by a supervisor who isn’t happy to learn she’s a single mother. Her life falls apart, and Valjean finds her again, not in time to save her, but at least take guardianship of her daughter, Cosette (the little girl you see on all the posters, even though she’s barely in the movie or the play as such), who will eventually grow up to be Amanda Seyfried.

That takes us to about the midpoint, at which the plot diverges into a love-at-first-sight story between a teenage Cosette and a young revolutionary named Marius (Eddie Redmayne). For those of us who are more invested in the Valjean/Javert dynamic – and I suspect that’s most of us – it takes some time to deal with this turn of events. The film’s least convincing moment is when Marius sees Cosette at a distance and knows it’s true love immediately, as the oft-attractive Seyfried is lit poorly in that scene and far from looking her radiant best, while Marius happens to be in the company of an absolute bombshell named Eponine (newcomer Samantha Barks), but in classic movie fashion, the fact that the latter is not blonde may seal her fate. Redmayne’s emotional and vocally strong performance recovers our attention, but it’s hard to feel much for his revolutionary band of brothers with no backstory.

It’s also tough to assess this all the same way one would a typical narrative feature – it’s sensation and spectacle, played in deliberately broad strokes, but it’s certainly demonstrative of the notion that being pitch-perfect isn’t enough when singing. To really excel, the emotion must be brought as well, and if the song’s written just right, it can be almost a cheat sheet – there’s a reason Dreamgirls‘ “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” wins acting awards for everyone who’s able to pull it off. Here, Anne Hathaway gets a moment akin to Jennifer Hudson’s, and director Tom Hooper wisely just holds the camera on her face as she leans against the wall. Nothing more is needed; it brings the house down.

Russell Crowe is perhaps the performer most people are suspicious of here, as his singing experience is in a rock band rather than musical theater. But he’s no Meat Loaf; his vocals are thinner and reedier than one might expect, and even seem a tad off-key at first, though he brings it home by the end. It matches the character, however; this Javert is one repressed dude, and unlike Geoffrey Rush’s interpretation of the character as a sneering villain, Crowe plays him as much as a masochist as sadist, longing to be punished for his own transgressions, perceived and real.

Is the movie long? Is it lacking in subtlety? Sure. But blaming it for those things feels like blaming The Avengers for showing too many superheroes. It may be that the stage version has some brilliant way of doing things even more effectively, but I have yet to read a pan of the film that can clearly tell me what way that might be. The songs rhyme and convey emotion; if some of them bludgeon you to tears, well, that’s a feature, not a bug. There is comic relief, by the way, in what amounts to a terrific in-joke: Sacha Baron Cohen and Helen Bonham Carter show up as if they’d just jogged in from the set of Sweeney Todd to play variations on those characters as a seedy con artist couple. That they show up conveniently at so many different locations and junctures in Valjean’s life is a conceit we may or may not forgive as being a holdover from a stage production, in which it simply wouldn’t make sense to have multiple actors perform the same plot function. But once you see Cohen’s smart and snappy “Master of the House,” I think you’ll roll with it.

For a guy whose previous film, The King’s Speech, felt like a play forced into becoming a movie, Tom Hooper has now given us practically the opposite – a movie version of a play so grandiose it couldn’t be contained within the proscenium arch. It’s a spectacle that works, and worrying about plot minutiae feels a bit like searching for a seashell in the sand while a tidal wave roars in.

—

Les Miserables opens Christmas Day.

And that, readers, is my final film review for Nerdist, as I will shortly be heading over to ToplessRobot.com to become the new editor. It’s been a blast, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t thank Nerdist.com Editor-in-Chief Perry Michael Simon for the chance to have been able to do this for you. Nerdist has some of the best commenters ever and I will miss y’all; follow me on Twitter @LYTrules if you want to keep up. Whether you agreed or disagreed, thanks for reading. – LYT

We’re used to Zack Snyder’s movies looking like stylized comic books, but it would appear that working with the top character in all of comicdom has pushed him in a different direction, visually – even as we see more footage of Man of Steel, it looks more and more like what would happen if Terrence Malick made an action movie. Not that there’s a damn thing wrong with that. It’s easy to imagine that Christopher Nolan’s oversight pushed Snyder more toward realism, but who can tell, really?

There are many reasons to do a frame-by-frame on this trailer, especially in the second part, wherein we get only brief glimpses of Michael Shannon’s General Zod, Russell Crowe’s Jor-El, a bare-chested Superman on fire, an unshaven Superman snarling like he’s Wolverine, and a whole lot of hovering spaceships that we figure Kal-El will start tossing around in the film’s climax.

Dunno what to make of Pa Kent telling little Clark that maybe he shouldn’t have saved a bunch of kids from drowning. Let us trust that it’s a moment of moral weakness. And we’re still dying to know – how does Superman shave?

Chime in below and tell us what you think of the new cinematic Superman so far.

]]>http://nerdist.com/new-man-of-steel-trailer-offers-more-hints-keeps-us-guessing/feed/10Dreamworks Animation 2013 Sneak Peek: “Mr Peabody,” “Croods” and “Turbo”http://nerdist.com/dreamworks-animation-2013-sneak-peek-mr-peabody-croods-and-turbo/
http://nerdist.com/dreamworks-animation-2013-sneak-peek-mr-peabody-croods-and-turbo/#commentsWed, 05 Dec 2012 23:00:16 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=61732We know, we know…if you’re a film fan, you’re being deluged with stuff right about now, be it the year-end new releases hoping for awards love or the just-announced Sundance lineup. And yet it’s not too soon to start thinking about March, July, and November of 2013, certainly not as far as Dreamworks Animation is concerned, as their big titles for next year were given a showcase yesterday morning on the company’s new home turf: the 20th Century Fox lot. For the next five years, the plan is to do three animated features a year, some of which, we were told, will feature familiar characters (i.e., sequels – but to what? The Madagascar and Shrek storylines are basically wrapped. A penguin spin-off is happening, but what else? More Guardians?) while others will be all-new.

Actually, let me walk back the last comments a tad – “familiar characters” may not always mean sequels. Indeed, the highlight of the presentation was a look at Mr. Peabody & Sherman, a CG adaptation of the Jay Ward characters. Yes, I did say highlight, and sympathize with your suspicions: from the Dave Thomas/Sally Kellerman Boris & Natasha to Brendan Fraser as an unfortunate Mountie, Hollywood hasn’t exactly been able to “Do-Right” with Bullwinkle and his animated pals. But with Jay’s daughter Tiffany as a consultant, it looks like they might finally have gotten one right.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUpO2-ewwqE?rel=0]

For those that don’t know – and I have only the sketchiest of knowledge, seeing as how the first generation of Cold War kids are the original fan base – Mr. Peabody is a super-intelligent dog who has adopted a human child named Sherman, and together they travel through time in furtherance of the boy’s education. To use a modern pop-cultural reference, Mr. Peabody’s personality feels a bit like a less obnoxious Niles Crane (Frasier references aren’t obsolete yet, are they?) and fear not, Dreamworks has not watered down his large vocabulary for the sake of the kids. The cast, which includes Stephen Colbert and Mel Brooks, also implies a smart satirical bent.

Firstly, we were shown what seems to be the teaser trailer, beginning with the original 2D cartoon (specifically, Peabody’s self-intro in the cartoon above), then pulling back and panning around to reveal that it’s on a flatscreen TV, being viewed by the fully 3D Sherman (Max Charles), who wonders what he’s watching. Mr. Peabody (Modern Family‘s Ty Burrell) explains that it’s them in the past, and then says they’re going to use their time machine (“the WABAC”) to go into the future. The future where everyone has Internet in their heads, asks Sherman? No – the future date of November 1st, when their movie comes out.

The movie begins with the duo going back to the French revolution and a meeting with Marie Antoinette, which leads to trouble when Sherman wanders off looking for some cake. We were then shown an unfinished clip of Mr. Peabody being taken to the guillotine, as Sherman looks on in horror and asks what he can do. Mr. P tells him to stare right where he is… as the sun reflects off his glasses in just the right way, and he escapes. Asked how he did it, he goes into Guy-Ritchie-Sherlock-Holmesian detail about how he calculated the spacing of manholes, weakness of the wood and the angle of the sun off Sherman’s glasses. Escaping to the sewer, they encounter Robespierre, whom Peabody tricks into dropping his sword, as the surf a sewer current on a manhole.

That’s just the intro. Afterward, the plot kicks into gear as we follow Sherman to his first day of school. Here, in history class, he makes a new enemy in the form of bratty blonde Penny Peterson (Ariel Winter), who is duly embarrassed when Sherman announces to the class that the story of George Washington cutting down the cherry tree is “apocryphal.”

Sometime after that scene, we are told that Sherman gets into a fight with Penny after she tells him he’s a dog because his father’s a dog. Called in to the principal’s office, Mr. P misunderstands and starts proposing an AP curriculum for his boy, before learning that he bit Penny, and lawsuits may be in the offing, including a call to child protective services about the fact that a dog has a human son.

To make peace, Penny and her family are invited around for dinner, but in a bid to get Penny to stop threatening him, Sherman tries to impress her by showing her the time machine. He doesn’t want to let her inside it, but she taunts him by saying that if he always does what people tell him, that makes him a dog.

And that’s all the footage we saw – the story really kicks off from there, it seems, as Sherman loses Penny in ancient Egypt. Events which unfold will also take them to the Renaissance and the Trojan War, as it becomes evident that time tampering could affect the fate of the universe.

The animation was mostly unfinished, but didn’t necessarily seem like it would be state of the art – nor does it have to be (Jay Ward’s original animation was about as primitive as it gets). The key is to keep its humor smart, while simultaneously getting kids interested in history. So far, it looks to be on the right track.

The other two movies being previewed, Turbo and The Croods, seemed like much more typical Dreamworks fare, with the obligatory over-familiar pop song as conspicuous as ever (House of Pain’s “Jump Around;” Jet’s “Are You Gonna Be My Girl”). Both also star Ryan Reynolds. To me, that’s a good thing – he’s a funny guy whose leading-man looks get in the way of respect, which is not so much of a factor in voice-over.

In Turbo, he’s a snail who’s obsessed with Formula 1 racing – in keeping with a theme that pervaded all three presentations, the opening of the movie, which we were showed, featured another 2D-to-3D fakeout, as a car race we initially see in vivid detail turns out only to be on TV in the background, and playing VHS tapes no less (I know it takes a long time to make an animated flick, but… VHS tapes?). His brother is played by Paul Giamatti, which likely represents the only time that sentence will ever be written. Needless to say, snails have a bit of a disadvantage when it comes to quickness – there’s a sequence where Turbo times himself trying to run the length of a 12-inch ruler, and is overjoyed that he sets a new record of 17 minutes.

Later, he finds his way out into the real world when he falls into traffic, and winds up being on the hood of a car that enters a Fast and Furious-style street race. Accidentally sucked into the engine and near-drowned in nitrous oxide, he finds himself changing at a molecular level, attaining the powers of a race car complete with headlights in the eyes, tail indicator lights and of course super-speed, which comes in handy when he’s kidnapped by a taco vendor for use in after-hours snail racing. The other racing snails, whose shells are decked out like sports cars, are voiced by the likes of Samuel L. Jackson, Snoop Dogg, and Maya Rudolph.

Since snails aren’t that expressive as animals, the use of their eye-stalks as “hands” where appropriate is a nice touch. Still, it feels a little formulaic, like Dreamworks saw the merchandising success of the Cars movies and wanted some of that for themselves.

Though The Croods appears to be anchored by Emma Stone, whose presence is always welcome, the main appeal to me (and others, I suspect) is Nicolas Cage as a caveman. Sure, I’d rather see that in live action, but still… Nic Cage as a caveman. Once again, the movie’s beginning features 2D becoming 3D, this time via cave paintings that come to life, as Emma Stone’s Eep narrates the story of her life in the last caveman family to survive in their valley, the others having all met horrible ends. As such, Cage’s patriarch is super-protective and never lets anyone leave the cave except to hunt for food. But when Eep does, she meets Guy (Ryan Reynolds again), an evolving type who has discovered such things as shoes and fire, and who tells her the end of the world is coming. Turns out he’s predicting continental drift, and the first warning sign is a massive avalanche that rips the Croods’ cave apart and reveals a lush new outside world that feels pretty much like Avatar‘s planet Pandora. The animals they find there are in a state of evolutionary flux, and tend to be half-and-half type things: whales that walk on land, piranha birds that swirl in tornado formations, mammoths with leopard-skin patterns, a carnivorous version of the exotic bird from Up, etc.

There are what are sure to become some classic new Cage-isms in what we saw – when confronted with fire for the first time and becoming scared of it, for example, he loudly advises his son, “Try hiding it in the tall, dry grass!” Plus there are numerous versions of him making like an ape expressing dominance and simply roaring gibberish, in the manner of Homer Simpson. Visually, though – and I know this has been in the works for nine years, so it may be unfortunate coincidence – the similarity to Avatar of the visuals is a bit much. And “Are You Gonna Be My Girl” on the soundtrack is very unfortunate; in a movie that otherwise seems to lack gratuitously “modern” jokes (e.g. the automatic customer service menu gag with the witch in Brave), a more classic score would be more appealing.

With that said, though, I spoke to a small child afterwards and she told me she loved the looks of Turbo and The Croods more so than Mr. Peabody. This could be because some of the Mr. Peabody animation was rough and unfinished, but I also suspect it’s because the other two are more visceral.

The Croods opens March 22nd, Turbo opens July 19th, and Mr. Peabody & Sherman opens Nov. 1st. All three movies will be in 3D.

]]>http://nerdist.com/dreamworks-animation-2013-sneak-peek-mr-peabody-croods-and-turbo/feed/7Review: The Hobbit Is An Expected Pleasurehttp://nerdist.com/lyt-review-the-hobbit-is-an-expected-pleasure/
http://nerdist.com/lyt-review-the-hobbit-is-an-expected-pleasure/#commentsTue, 04 Dec 2012 05:01:52 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=61535If The Fellowship of the Ring had not been based on a book, then The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (or as I dubbed it on Twitter, Preciousss: Based on the Novel “Bagginses” by Tolkien) would feel much like a next-generation reboot. Complete with new material not from the novel that makes things feel prequel-ier, it features many near-identical plot points (Hello again, Rivendell! Welcome, new Orc mini-boss! Cue signature music at exactly the same points, subbing orchestral “Misty Mountains” where the original grandiose theme would be) and the same types of shots (narrow pathway around a mountainside at night – check; top of a mountain range by day – check). Meanwhile, the novel’s story has been given more portentous weight, as every rogue monster encountered by Bilbo Baggins and crew has been retconned into part of a larger incursion of evil in general (and yes, I know this is all based on additional J.R. R. Tolkien notes), presumably eventually heralding Sauron but meanwhile involving a shadowy figure called the Necromancer, who will likely be revealed more in the sequels, given that he’s just a shadow here, yet played by a surprise actor with major geek cred. It’ll be interesting to see if they end up explaining the differences between trolls in the trilogies: Here, they can talk and turn to stone in sunlight.

The callbacks might seem tedious if not for the fact that they are now in 3-D High Frame Rate (assuming you see it in a theater that offers such), delivering a level of clarity that’s both astounding and potentially nauseating. For those who don’t know the details, regular film runs by at 24 frames per second, and as you see 24 images fly by that fast, the illusion of motion is generated. HFR is 48 frames per second, which creates a brighter, clearer image; Essentially, it’s reminiscent of the first time you ever watched an HD channel on a large high definition flatscreen. It also gave me a touch of motion sickness at times, which I don’t generally get in movies – the closest prior to this was the swooping 3-D Imax opening credits in Flying Swords of Dragon Gate. Anyway, there’s a lot more of Rivendell to check out, for example, when it looks like the world’s most elaborate dollhouse laid out right in front of you. Ditto the numerous different underground lairs of narrow catwalks above huge chasms that every race in Peter Jackson’s Tolkien universe is so fond of constructing. Film can and will die happy if this is the way the future looks; the only minor glitch, it seemed to me, was that every so often, as the camera would move, a face might look like cel-shading for a second, almost as if whatever information was being processed couldn’t quite handle the full detail for a moment. That, and a tiny bit of “ghosting” on the opening titles, which maybe amounted in total to a couple minutes of glitches in a 2-hour, 45-minute movie.

If it seems like I’m hedging, rest assured this is not so: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is more fun than The Fellowship of the Ring, no doubt about it. That said, it may inform your interpretation of this review to know that I always vastly preferred The Hobbit as a book to its successors. I chalk this up in part to the Ralph Bakshi film that only got halfway through the Lord of the Rings story. As a kid, I wanted to know how it ended, but didn’t want to read stuff I already knew, and had little luck jumping in the middle. But The Hobbit got read multiple times.

What’s good for the book is also good for the film – a sense of humor. Though some of LOTR‘s self-importance is being retroactively returned to the tale, Bilbo is simply a much more fun reluctant-hero than Frodo, whose dewy-eyed earnestness was way too goody-goody at times. Martin Freeman also played Arthur Dent in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and that character – quite correctly – shares spiritual DNA with this Hobbit, who wants to live out the simplest pleasures of the countryside, but gets whisked into something bigger, and complains all the time. It also feels like the themes here are more tangible for kids to relate to than abstract ultimate-good versus ultimate-evil, such as the benefits of going outside and making friends instead of sitting around the house (granted, LOTR had a team of friends too, but it broke up rather quickly. This group stays together).

The plot once again revolves around a quest to a distant mountain, though in this case it contains a dragon rather than a volcano, a gold-hungry jerk named Smaug (vowel sound is awkwardly pronounced “ow,” as in “Sauron”) who has displaced the dwarf population which once reigned there. The 13 dwarfs who come to recruit Bilbo as their burglar – on a strongly unsubtle recommendation from Gandalf (Ian McKellen, as if you didn’t know) – are pissed off not just at the dragon, but also at Orcs, who took advantage of the situation, and Elves, who did nothing to help. In a gloriously cool battle flashback, we get to see how lead dwarf Thorin (Richard Armitage) earned the name Oakenshield, using a piece of tree to defend against giant white Orc Azog (Manu Bennett), who’s kinda like a larger, angrier Kratos from God of War. We also know Thorin is the main hero dwarf because he looks like a regular leading man (albeit a large-nosed one), while most of the rest of his entourage – save maybe the archer Kili – are roundish caricatures who would seem perfectly at home singing “Hi-Ho!” to Snow White.

While there has been much discussion online from geek parents as to which order the Star Wars movies should be shown vis-a-vis their kids, there should be little debate about the Hobbit films – this one doesn’t work so well as an entry point into Middle-earth, with its Gandalf-centered subplot heavily dependent upon the viewer’s knowledge of what is to come. As a first part, it could easily do without “fanboy porn” moments like the time-wasting Elijah Wood cameo – it’s already overlong, and going to be extended on DVD because nobody says no to Peter Jackson any more. Overall point being, if – like me – you’re taking someone to see this who doesn’t know all the other stuff, you may have a lot of explaining to do (think of Gollum, for instance, whose origin isn’t shown until the later films and whose big reveal here is significantly enhanced by our pre-existing good will).

I will say that PJ missed the opportunity for the greatest in-joke ever; how cool would it be if Leonard Nimoy showed up, in any form, to tell Bilbo he’s “the bravest little Hobbit of them all?” Sam Raimi, I reckon, would not have resisted such a chance, but kudos for some other canny casting cameos – Barry Humphries as the Goblin King and Seventh Doctor Sylvester McCoy as the birdshit-bedecked hippie wizard Radagast the Brown add to the general refreshing cheekiness herein (that, and the part where they just randomly happen upon stone giants beating the crap out of each other for no reason). The big-name Necromancer can’t really be commented on as yet because he’s barely here, but once you know who it is, you should have little doubt he’ll be significant later.

But yeah – better battles, bigger effects, new cinematic technology and a good sense of humor about itself all combine to make this Unexpected Journey a most expected joy. I still wish it weren’t three films, as it’s harder to get excited about a first act you know cannot possibly pay off right away. But count me onboard for the rest. I suspect I’ll be far from alone.

Special bonus note: If, like me, you were wondering how the haunting theme song can be submitted for Best Original Song, it’s actually pretty clever. The dwarfs sing Tolkien’s original lyrics, but then, over the end credits, it’s the same tune with slightly different lyrics, and that’s what’s being submitted for the Oscar. Tricksy.

]]>http://nerdist.com/lyt-review-the-hobbit-is-an-expected-pleasure/feed/25Interview: Dolph Lundgren, Still a “Universal” Action Star.http://nerdist.com/interview-dolph-lundgren-still-a-universal-action-star/
http://nerdist.com/interview-dolph-lundgren-still-a-universal-action-star/#commentsFri, 30 Nov 2012 15:00:27 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=60975He was He-Man and the Punisher back in the ’80s after beating Apollo Creed to death, but Dolph Lundgren is quite literally still kicking – karate, along with chemical engineering, is one of his specialties. Considering all his performances in movies that were supposed to start franchises, it is perhaps a surprise that his longest-running recurring role has been as a villain who got tossed in a wood-chipper by Jean-Claude Van Damme in Roland Emmerich’s Universal Soldier. Thanks to the miraculous plot device of cloning, he’s back for a third time, though in Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning – shot in 3D and veering more towards horror than prior installments (see our review from Fantastic Fest) – it isn’t clear which side he’s on. Except, obviously, the side of awesome.

Given the opportunity to talk to the action icon, we couldn’t just stick to the topic at hand. Fortunately, in person, he is a charming, chatty soul, nothing like the oft-psychotic juggernauts he’s known for playing.

Nerdist: Dolph, it’s great to see you back on the big screen. Does it feel like a comeback to you? Looking at your filmography, it seems you’ve been working pretty steadily in direct-to-DVD. Does this year feel in any way different, or is it just another day, another dollar?

Dolph Lundgren: Nah, it feels different starting 2010, when I did the first Expendables, then the second Expendables and this. What happened, really, was I was married and lived in Europe for 12 years, with two kids, I lived in Spain. Now, there are not too many action movies shooting in southern Spain, you know? So you have to come back to L.A. to get your career going, which I did. Got divorced, unfortunately – it was actually good for both of us, but now I’m back in L.A., since 2010, and just the fact of being here and focusing on my career has changed things quite a bit.

N: Both in Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning and The Expendables movies, it really feels like you’re doing more method-acting than some of the others – like, I believe that guy on screen is genuinely crazy. How do you approach it – do you talk to shell-shocked veterans and things like that?

DL: I think part of it is the writing of the role, and Expendables was a fun role because he’s not just a tough guy; he’s crazy and tough at the same time, so he’s more fun to play. You just try to find some kind of way into him, why he is that way, and something that works on film, you know, a way of expressing that part. It’s a fun character, and I like the original Expendables; the second one was fun, but it wasn’t quite as deep as the first one, which for me at least was like playing in a real drama – the guy has real problems and we follow him through various steps. But I do, I do prepare quite a bit, and I think a lot of those movies that I made straight to DVD, some of them the writing maybe wasn’t great, and the direction perhaps wasn’t that good, and your work doesn’t really stand out; but then as soon as you start working with better writers and directors, it shows up more.

N: At the same time, it feels like a lot of your ’80s movies that really weren’t highly regarded at the time have had a whole generation of kids grow up who loved them, and now there’s a lot more respect accorded something like Masters of the Universe or Red Scorpion. Does it feel like in Hollywood now there are more people admitting to being fans of those?

DL: Yeah, I hear that quite a bit. I think because they’ve become more classic; it’s all the in-camera effects and they’re old-school in many ways. I think it goes to some extent because I’m still around, and I’m still working, and I still look… fairly good, I guess. It all adds up, and there are fewer and fewer people who’ve been around that long who are still working. They fall off for various reasons, so then you become more unique, because most… 90% of all the guys who do action movies have come up in the last five years, maybe. Except I’ve been around for 25 years, then Sly of course, and Arnold, and Clint Eastwood even longer.

N: Because you really look like a leading guy, has it ever been harder to maybe get character parts that you’ve wanted to get?

DL: Well, yeah, that’s true, but it’s also kind of the opposite: that I perhaps look more like a leading man than some of the characters that I’ve played. I suppose that’s something I’m trying to maybe use a little bit. I’ve played a lot of character roles, but for some reason found it harder to get more leading roles. But I think now being here back in L.A., I’ve got some stuff that I’m working on that’s… you know, I like characters, but it’s also fun to play people who are maybe a little more normal. There’s a little more heart there, a little concern – trying to protect people rather than kill them all the time. (Laughs) I don’t know if it’ll work. We’ll see.

N: When you’re shooting a fight in 3D, is it harder to do – more full-contact because you can’t fake the perspective?

DL: Yeah. It is more difficult, because you have to go much closer with the hits, and also there are other aspects: you try to keep it going because of momentum, and your body gets cold and all of that, but 3D can have more technical problems. So it’s a little annoying, and more of a challenge. By the way, I haven’t seen the film yet in 3D, myself; I’ve only seen it in 2D.

N: The 3D’s fantastic.

DL: Is it? Really? OK, I gotta see it.

N: With a guy like Andrei Arlovski, where he has MMA fighting experience and you have karate experience, is it easier maybe to not pull your punches and do a little more full-contact, because you know you’re both used to that?

DL: Yeah, for sure. I mean, Arlovski actually is a great fighter; he just didn’t have experience in taking hits, so we did have problems with him sometimes selling something, where he would say [adopts fake Russian accent] “Okay, just hit me for real! Kick me! Is okay!” And then you kind of go, should I really hit this guy, because then he’s gonna come at me with a fuckin’ chair or something after that? But I had a fight with him in the beginning, and I liked that fight because it feels very real and rough, and he actually, when I kicked him into the corner with all those breakaway chairs – that’s a real kick, because he couldn’t sell it otherwise.

N: As far as you know – and maybe heard from him – how was the character of Ivan Drago received by Russians and Soviets?

DL: They liked him, even though he lost a fight against Rocky. He took care of that other guy with a big mouth, Creed. They like him, and I think at the time Rocky IV was one of the first pictures they could get on home video back in the ’80s, because communists would try to stop everything from coming in to Russia. But on the black market you could get that picture, so for a lot of people in Russia, that’s the first Hollywood movie they saw on video – because you couldn’t show it in the theaters. So when I go to Russia, people are super-star-struck, I mean much more than here.

N: I have to ask, as a lifelong He-Man fan – has John Chu contacted you about maybe playing his father in the new Masters of the Universe movie?

DL: I read about that. I haven’t heard anything, and I guess we’ll see what happens. Are they making that picture now?

N: They’ve hired him as a director.

DL: We’ll see what happens. For me it’s like a fog, back in 1986, but it was fun. It was really cold, wearing that outfit for nine weeks in the middle of winter, just some diapers with leather strings attached to them.

N: It’s kinda legendary how you guys had to sneak back in at night to shoot the final battle because there was no money left.

DL: That’s right, with Skeletor. That was done at Lionsgate studios, the old Lions Gate. The whole thing was crazy, because Cannon were going under at the time, and they were this close to being bankrupt towards the end. I wasn’t aware of that; I was just a kid, but it was a tough situation.

N: Do you have any memories of Jack Abramoff from Red Scorpion?

DL: Yeah! Nice guy… to me. He was a nice guy, him and his brother. I remember they took me to the White House, and I saw Reagan there sitting in the Oval Office working, like 1987 or something like that. He just walked straight in. I remember, he walked past all the security, you know, he was pals with Oliver North and all of those guys, and I suppose there’s some talk that he had access to some money from the CIA, because they were suddenly sponsoring all these movies where the Russians were the bad guys… [laughs] like my film.

N: Final question – for The Expendables 3, who would you like to see brought on board?

DL: God, well… there are so many guys who are in that vein, but there are very few left, I suppose. Like Wesley Snipes, for instance. Well, there’s Jackie Chan, of course, who’d be one of those guys who’s a little bit older; he’s a very nice guy. I heard something about Nicolas Cage – I thought that was a good idea. Avi Lerner works with him a lot. Of course, could they get some of the real old-timers like Harrison Ford or Clint Eastwood; I guess [Clint] turned it down, I heard. That’s what he said, anyway, which, I understand why, because he doesn’t need to do anything like that. Then there’s that whole bunch of guys who were in The Fast and the Furious, all those guys, like Vin Diesel. I don’t know who Sly’s after, but there’s always Mr. Seagal, if he’s available. We’ll see.

—

Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning opens theatrically today, and is also available on-demand in both 3D and 2D versions.

]]>http://nerdist.com/interview-dolph-lundgren-still-a-universal-action-star/feed/4Figures & Speech: All I Want for Christmashttp://nerdist.com/figures-speech-all-i-want-for-christmas/
http://nerdist.com/figures-speech-all-i-want-for-christmas/#commentsWed, 28 Nov 2012 23:00:29 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=61069Toy collectors know the deal. Friends and relatives aren’t going to shop for you because (a) what you want is sometimes hard to find, (b) you probably found it for yourself at some point, and (c) they have no idea which figures you already have, nor do they care, except inasmuch as it humors you. That’s why you send them to me. I’m not going to read minds here, and this is not a gift guide full of stuff that I’m giving away – for that, I urge you to check out our mega-mega-massive gift guide giveaway currently running over at Nerdist News.

No, this is a list of stuff I want, or would want if I had the space, which I don’t. This may not be an issue for you. At the very least, it should give you some ideas.

If price is no object, I suggest Enterbay’s 18″ Heath Ledger Joker figure. With more than 25 points of articulation and a cloth costume, he’s bigger than your average Hot Toys figure and more intricate than the typical NECA 18-incher. He’s also around four hundred bucks, and if you have that to spare in this economy, squirreling it into savings might not be amiss. But if you want to give it as a gift, you’ll earn some collector’s undying gratitude.

Cheaper, but just as big, is NECA’s quarter-scale City Hunter Predator, the sequel to last year’s big vagina-mouthed hunter figure from the first film. If you missed out on that one, or even if you didn’t, the Predator 2 version has a new head, color scheme, weapons and armor, and you can probably pick it up for under $100.

In a similar price range, Mattel presents the largest Masters of the Universe figure ever – Granamyr the Dragon King, as seen in the mini-comics and Filmation series. He would stand at about 30 inches if he could stand up, but much like Todd McFarlane’s Malebolgia, he’s meant to be posed seated. If you want this guy, though, you have to be very specific – and trust me, my fiancee has been given step-by-step details on this one. He’ll be up for purchase at Mattycollector.com on December 15th, while supplies last. As a big, expensive item, he should last a day or two, but you CANNOT count on that; this is a long-requested character who has never been made before.

Downscaling a bit, and bringing it back to NECA, we have the Prometheus figures, which are a must-have addition for anybody who collects Aliens, Predators or similar critters. Two versions of the Engineer are available single-carded, but the jewel is the Toys R Us exclusive Engineer versus Trilobite battle set – which does happen to be one of the many items in our massive giveaway. Proto-human versus proto-facehugger, and unlike John Hurt, the big white dude won’t go down easily. Speaking of not going down easily, NECA also has a TRU exclusive 2-pack of Rocky Balboa and Apollo Creed in “beaten the shit out of each other” postfight mode. Set that on your desk to remind you that, as stressful as work can be, there are tougher battles.

Wrestling figures have a very specific demographic, but it should be noted that even fans who don’t normally collect toys don’t mind getting little plastic likenesses of their faves. This season’s hot ticket on that score is also a TRU exclusive series – an Elite-style Mattel set based on pay-per-view appearances. The Miz in “Team Johnny” shirt, C.M. Punk with the title belt, camouflage Big Show, and referee Shawn Michaels comprise the series – buy them all to complete a fifth figure, namely Alberto Del Rio’s ever-annoying ring announcer Ricardo Rodriguez.

Todd McFarlane’s Walking Dead figures have gotten mixed reviews, but while the humans aren’t much to write home about, the zombies in series 2 bring some old-school fun with pull-apart features and such. RV Zombie, Well Zombie, and Bicycle Girl would be better at a larger scale, but I still dig ’em at the smaller size. Oh, and… wait for it… they’re in our big giveaway, too.

I’d be totally remiss if I didn’t put something more girly on the list – folks, if you’re buying for a girl geek who isn’t totally gender-neutral when it comes to collectibles, Sanrio has Hello Kitty playsets aplenty, and in my unstudied opinion they’re significantly better than the Mega Bloks attempts at the same idea. If I can adjust my headspace to counter the fact that these are insanely testosterone-repellant, I do have to admit that sets like the castle and the amusement park are pretty cool if you’re into that sort of thing. And hey, after Bronies, isn’t about time we saw a movement called “he-Hellos” or something? (If there already is such a movement and I’ve misnamed it, please accept my apologies and set me straight in comments below.)

Finally, it’s not too early to start thinking about next Christmas, especially since the best thing you could possibly give ends its preorders January 4th. Castle MuthaPhukkin’ Grayskull – the Barbie Dream House of the space barbarian world – is going to be the coolest toy anyone receives next year, but you need to preorder it now. Yes, I know – some relationships won’t last that long. But if you promise your significant other a $250 fortress of mystery and power, there’s no way they’ll break up with you till they get it. Not that you should bribe them – bribery is wrong. But Grayskull has THE power.

]]>http://nerdist.com/figures-speech-all-i-want-for-christmas/feed/0Jaeger Meisters, Killer Kaiju – The “Pacific Rim” Viral Marketing Beginshttp://nerdist.com/jaeger-meisters-killer-kaiju-the-pacific-rim-viral-marketing-begins/
http://nerdist.com/jaeger-meisters-killer-kaiju-the-pacific-rim-viral-marketing-begins/#commentsWed, 28 Nov 2012 20:45:53 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=61174We’ve been hearing a lot about Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim, usually laced with expletives if it’s coming from his mouth (“Giant fucking monsters versus giant fucking robots!” is his signature summation of the plot), and the panel at San Diego Comic-Con International certainly got fans talking, but unless you were there, odds are that all you’ve seen of the movie are the human-sized costumes that have been on display at various conventions and trade shows.

Today, that starts to change. The official website of the Pan Pacific Defense Corps is now live, and if you poke around as much as is possible so far, you’ll come across this…

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9PFtl2tt9E?rel=0]

What’s most notable here is the mainstreaming of the word “kaiju,” the Japanese word for giant monsters like Godzilla/Gojira. Otaku and other fans of all things monstrous have long used the term generically, but it appears that’s what the monsters will literally be called in the movie. There’s also a countdown clock set to hit zero in two weeks, right around when The Hobbit is set to come out; we already know Legendary plans a Man of Steel trailer in front of that, and this makes us suspect it won’t be their only one (note: although Legendary owns Nerdist, that’s not us being coy, but genuinely a guess; we have editorial independence and do not know all their secrets).

Facing the kaiju will be the giant robots, which will be piloted by two people and be known as Jaegers – this could be a subtle tribute to Jet Jaguar, one of the more famous kaiju-fighting robos in Godzilla-dom. And they’re going to be a global army: here’s a leaked memo from the UK and one from France on the subject.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: As Luke pointed out above, while Nerdist Industries is part of Legendary Pictures, we are editorially independent. And we don’t know nothin’ other than what’s in here, so don’t even try….)

]]>http://nerdist.com/jaeger-meisters-killer-kaiju-the-pacific-rim-viral-marketing-begins/feed/7The Shelf: “Transformers Prime,” “The Day,” and “ParaNorman”http://nerdist.com/the-shelf-transformers-prime-the-day-and-paranorman/
http://nerdist.com/the-shelf-transformers-prime-the-day-and-paranorman/#commentsWed, 28 Nov 2012 00:15:20 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=61009Welcome to the Shelf. Today we’re primed to talk about the second season of our favorite Transformers show, a great family horror film throwback, and a post-apocalyptic movie for the WWE fan set.

When last we saw the Autobots and Decepticons on Transformers Prime, Optimus had lost all memory of being who he was and instead had reverted to his pre-prime state of Orion Pax. The opening episodes of the second season start us off very strong with the Autobots having to send one of their human counterparts to Cybertron to save Optimus. The rest of the episodes keep pace nicely with strong arcs for Starscream, Optimus Prime and new addition Dreadwing, the return of MECH (the Optimus Prime doppleganger episodes are fun), and more exploration of the love/hate relationship between Optimus and Megatron. The show’s devotion to good storytelling is making this series the most compelling iteration of Transformers ever made, and I highly recommend giving it a view. The Blu-ray release features 26 epsiodes of high-definition robots-in-disguise goodness. The set even includes the amazing Optimus Prime: Up Close And Personal panel from San Diego Comic-Con International featuring Larry King interviewing Peter Cullen about his experiences voicing Optimus Prime.

Want to win copies of Transfomers Prime Season 1 & 2? Enter our Holiday Shopping Guide Giveaway and you’ll have a chance to win them and $5000 worth of other cool stuff. And the best part for you metal heads out there, three runners-up get the Blu-rays for Transformers Prime.

WWE Studios’ first acquisition – and as such, their first film not to feature a wrestler in any role – marks a significant departure from the family-friendly tone the company has tried to adopt as of late, playing like a sequel to The Road that eschews all contemplation and replaces it with more gore. Dominic Monaghan leads a group of survivors from an unspecified apocalypse to what they think is safe shelter, only to find that a local tribe is none too keen on leaving them alive. Bleached out to almost total grayness, The Day has more style than your usual kill-’em-off slasher, and leaves us wanting to know more about the world it creates. Check out our interview with Monaghan from earlier this year.

Though it was marketed in a manner that promoted its more comedic aspects, ParaNorman‘s biggest strength is that it has far more going on: It gets genuinely scary towards the end, and it does a nifty reversal in its portrayal of zombies, who turn out to be more fearful of modern rednecks than anyone is of them. Beyond that, it’s a great parable of how easy it is to marginalize and misunderstand people who seem a little different, and frankly we can’t imagine a message more likely to resonate with fans of Nerdist. It probably won’t take the animated-feature Oscar from the more family friendly Wreck-It Ralph, but it certainly deserves a fighting chance, especially among viewers who like their animated tales to push the boundaries of American acceptability just a bit. If you need any more convincing, check out our glowing review from August, as well as our interview with directors Chris Butler and Sam Fell.

You want presents; we got ’em – about $5,000 worth. So for one lucky contestant, all your seasonal shopping has already been done by us. For three other almost-as-lucky entrants, we have additional Blu-ray sets of Transformers Prime seasons 1 & 2 and a Kotobukiya Star Wars Death Star Ice Mold. You have until Dec. 10th, 2012 to enter, and until then should stay tuned to our Facebook, Twitter and Google+ pages for posts that can net you some extra chances to sleigh the competition. Yoda may have said that size matters not, but he never saw the sheer mass of stuff we’re about to bestow. Batman, Superman, Ninja Turtles, Master Chief, Marcus Fenix, Mr. Spock, James Bond, and Doctor Who are among the many iconic characters represented herein by merchandise of some form or another, bringing together the greatest grouping of goodies since the Rebel Alliance. Want the detailed rundown? Here goes:

–The Princess Bride Cliffs of Insanity Duel Statues (includes both Inigo Montoya and Dread Pirate Roberts Statues). Do the holidays feel like utter insanity to you? We’re still smiling, because we know something you do not know: we’re not left-handed…and we have to show you this inconceivably great Princess Bride Cliffs of Insanity Duel statue set. It’s sure to absolutely kill as a gift for someone like your father; prepare to buy.

-Doctor Who DVD Box Set. Seeing the doctor is usually no fun, and expensive. Seeing six season of the Doctor is amazing and doable all at once with this deluxe gift set collecting every full season since the show’s revival. Includes a sonic screwdriver, art prints and a comic book.

-Doctor Who Series Seven Part 1 Blu-ray. Say goodbye to the Ponds all over again. Of the five episodes in Part 1, “Asylum of the Daleks,” “Dinosaurs on a Spaceship,” and “The Angels Take Manhattan” are standouts, with the introduction of a Dalek that we might get to see again, finally meeting Rory’s dad Brian Williams (played beautifully by Mark Williams) and saying goodbye to Amy and Rory.

-Bond 50 Blu-ray set. With Skyfall out and breaking records, it’s time to catch up on what came before. Need more Moore? Been lazy about Lazenby? Doubtin’ your Dalton expertise? We could try and make Connery, Brosnan and Craig puns too, but the bit is wearing thin. You get the point. Every James Bond so far on Blu-ray.

-The Dark Knight Trilogy Blu-ray set. Want to really get under Batman’s cowl? Sure you do – because you’ll find three great movies there. Plus an exclusive 64-page excerpt from The Art and Making of the Dark Knight Trilogy. We swear to you you’ll have fun reliving everything from Ledger’s lunacy to Bane’s baleful breathing.

-Kotobukiya ArtFX The Dark Knight Rises Statue. If you like your Batman triumphant, this statue shows the caped crusader in a classic hero pose, with billowing cape, two interchangeable Bat-weapons and a secret light-up Bat-Signal in the base.

-Batman: Earth One graphic novel. If you’d prefer to let others plan the battles and simply read about them yourself, we recommend Geoff Johns and Gary Frank’s title, which, like the Christopher Nolan films, offers a new-yet-faithful retelling of the Bruce Wayne tale. You’ll have to imagine the raspy voice yourself.

–Cryptozoic DC Comics Deck-Building Game. The Clown Prince of Crime is not the only one who can play with cards. Cryptozoic’s DC Comics Deck-Building Game starts you off with one of seven major heroes – Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman and Cyborg – and lets you play to acquire powers and equipment to defeat the many villains who pop up in the deck like, ahem, jokers.

– Power Girl Bishoujo Statue – Is she from Krypton or Atlantis, Earth-1 or Earth-2, Superman’s cousin or just someone who likes to cause giant debates on superhero fashion? The Bishoujo Power Girl statue won’t answer any of those questions, but it will look good on your shelf as you research her backstory in your long boxes.

-McFarlane Toys The Walking Dead TV Series 2 complete set. If AMC’s version of The Walking Dead is tops in your heart, consider McFarlane Toys’ second series of TV-based action figures, including fan-fave Bicycle Girl with reaching action, all the better to reenact truly “touching” moments.

-The Walking Dead Compendium One. For originalist purists and new fans, Compendium One, which includes most of the major storylines used on the TV show so far, is a great read, and heavy enough to do some damage if you have to whack a zombie in the head with it.

-Invincible compendium. If you want all the Kirkman wit, but with flights and tights instead of groans and bites, then Invincible is the book for you. Tying classic superheroism with a modern sensibility and a knowing wink to the comics stereotypes that have come before, it’ll get someone hooked on the comics habit when you buy them this book.

-DC/Vertigo’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Graphic Novel. People can debate all they want about the merits of Noomi Rapace versus Rooney Mara in their differing interpretations of Lisbeth Salander, but we’d like to present a third option. Featuring details the movies couldn’t fit into their running times, it also avoids the whole language/accent issue by leaving you free to imagine that part yourself.

-Superman: Earth One Vol. 1 & 2. J. Michael Straczynski’s saga-of-steel reinvents Superman in a new universe free of continuity baggage, as Clark Kent learns who he wants to be while having to fight off an alien army responsible for the destruction of his homeworld, Krypton.

–Avatar 3D Blu-ray. Why did the movie that gave us a new respect for 3D take so long to come out on 3D Blu-ray? James Cameron’s famous perfectionism, we’re thinking (and expecting).

-Anomaly. Shoot forward into the off-world colonies of the year 2717 in the massive, oversized, full-color graphic novel Anomaly, which features augmented reality apps that create 3-D models on your tablet as you follow the action on the page.

-Star Wars: Sculpting a Galaxy book. Features more than 300 full-color photographs and illustrations from the Lucasfilm archives, models from all six films, interviews, images and text with concept sculptors, an overview of the ILM model shop from 1976 through today and numerous gatefolds of the most loved models.

-Gentle Giant Jar Jar Binks Holiday Bust 2-pack. Like Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree, Holiday Jar Jar is the underdog collectible who just needs some love. The goofy Gungan may not be much use in the Senate, but he’d liven up a holiday party for sure. Just be careful around the mistletoe, with that tongue of his…

-Ted Blu-ray. Seth MacFarlane brought Sam J. Jones back to the big screen in full Flash Gordon get-up to portray himself as a coke-fueled lunatic. For this alone, we must own Ted. But the rest of it’s funny too.

-The Watch Blu-ray. This frat-pack comedy about a neighborhood watch that has to protect the world from alien invasion is a light, cheesy sci-fi adventure. The jokes often go for the easy pay off and the actors are playing characters we’ve seen them play time and time again, but The Watch is comedy comfort food. You watch this because you want to see a movie about man-children doing stupid things and not understanding the consequences.

-Universal 100 Blu-ray Set. Celebrate a century with twenty-five choice classics: with everything from To Kill a Mockingbird to Scarface and Despicable Me; it’s nuts how close to pleasing everybody this particular gift gets.

-Blade Runner Blu-ray collector set. If the five-disc DVD suitcase for the 25th anniversary seemed too bulky, this Blu-ray set is for you, as it has a whopping five versions of the movie (theatrical, director’s cut, extended international theatrical cut, final cut, and workprint version) on only three discs. It’s the last Blade Runner set you’ll ever need to own, until Ridley Scott makes the sequel and a new one comes out.

-Prometheus Blu-ray. When fanboy rage at Damon Lindelof finally dies down, maybe then we can look at Prometheus without any baggage from Lost. Because after all, Ridley Scott has made a mighty ambitious prequel with an incredibly cynical take on humanity and the reasons why we may be endlessly predisposed toward violence, since we came from a space bio-weapons lab to begin with. Also, Michael Fassbender and Charlize Theron look mighty pretty and there’s cool aliens, along with some gleefully nasty self-surgery.

–Gears of War Centaur Erector Set. Get into the real, literal nuts and bolts of the GOW universe as you screw together this tank, driven by li’l minifig versions of Augustus Cole and Marcus Fenix. Comes with two enemy Locusts and tiny guns for everyone.

-Mighty Morphin Power Rangers original Series DVD Set. Teenagers who look like adults battle putty-monsters who look like men in suits, while wearing helmets with lips that don’t move, and occasionally summoning giant transforming robots. Makes sense to us…or it did, as far as we can remember.

-Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Classic Series DVD Set. They got their start in black-and-white comics, but we’d wager that the way most fans of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles first encountered them was as TV’s “heroes in a half-shell: Turtle power!” Bebop on over and rock steady as you relive all the old memories with the classic cartoons in a bodacious party-wagon box.

-Transformers Prime seasons 1 and 2 Blu-ray. This may be the best animated iteration of the toy robots in disguise so far, borrowing elements from prior cartoons and the live-action movies for an ultimate, unified interpretation. We predict they can transform your frown upside down.

– Set of three Final Fantasy KAI minis – Square Enix’s Trading Arts KAI collection runs the spectrum from hyperrealistic to the adorably super-deformed. Now, when we say super-deformed we don’t mean like Quasimodo; think more like DK mode from classic Goldeneye or the character sprites in Final Fantasy VII. One lucky winner will be taking home FFVII‘s Cloud, FFVIII‘s Squall andFFX‘s Yuna. Cue the victory music.

– Hitman: Absolution Play Arts KAI Agent 47. His work may be bloody, but his fashionable red tie means he can go to a post-mission cocktail party and it’ll mask any stray bloodstains. Tres chic, Agent 47, tres chic.

– Final Fantasy 25th Anniversary Chocobo Plush Toy. For characters in the Final Fantasy games, it seems there’s nearly always a Chocobo somewhere nearby, willing to shake its tailfeathers for a few Gysahl Greens. Mere players of the games may be jealous, but now you too can use your hard-earned Gysahl greenbacks to snag a plush version of the big bird from Square Enix in honor of the franchise’s 25th anniversary

– Revolutionary Girl Utena DVD Box Set. Princes! Betrayal! Teenagers in love! Right Stuf takes the classic anime series and gives it an incredible makeover in this brand new box set featuring rare art, production materials and even a wearable ring! Prepare to be the envy of all your otaku friends.

– Martian Successor Nadesico DVD Box Set. In space, no one can hear you scream, but inside the spaceship ND-01 Nadesico, everyone can hear you laughing, because this raucous sci-fi comedy is a blast from start to finish. Not only that, but Right Stuf’s box set collects the tie-in film and, for the first time in English, the Gekingangar 3 spin-off series!

– Ristorante Paradiso DVD Box Set. A scorned daughter sets off for Rome with the intention of ruining her absentee mother’s life, only to find that she’s working in an awesome restaurant with the coolest bespectacled staff ever. This revenge drama turned slice-of-life story is sweet, thoughtful, funny and will leave you with a powerful hunger for anything and everything carbohydrated. Seriously, why does animated food always look so darn good?

-The Big Bang Theory: The Party Game. If toy weapons aren’t your thing and you’d rather use intellect and sarcasm as your weapons instead, this game by Cryptozoic will help you get your geek on.

-Doctor Who Teapot. You’ve heard of the metaphorical tempest in a teacup? Howzabout a TARDIS in a teapot? Make yourself the most refreshing cuppa of all time (and space). But what kind of dinner set can we get to match?

]]>http://nerdist.com/nerdists-great-cyber-monday-holiday-gift-guide-giveaway/feed/40Figures & Speech: Thanksgiving’s Five Most Gluttonous Action Figureshttp://nerdist.com/figures-speech-thanksgivings-five-most-gluttonous-action-figures/
http://nerdist.com/figures-speech-thanksgivings-five-most-gluttonous-action-figures/#commentsWed, 21 Nov 2012 20:00:29 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=60561Tomorrow, you will stuff yourself silly. Pretty much a given, right? And yet your toys will maintain their perfect, unrealistic physiques…or will they? We’re not saying most toy figures aren’t heroically pumped to a point no human can hope to achieve – but there are some who are clearly more prone to overindulgence than they should be. You might not want to read any further on a full stomach of your own.

5. Humpty Dumpty – McFarlane’s Twisted Fairy Tales.

Part Mr. Creosote from Monty Python, part victim of Silver Shamrock from Halloween III, this Humpty is pretty much a failure on most levels: as an action figure he’s mostly unarticulated, and as a nursery rhyme character, he can’t even get his fat ass up on the wall he’s so famous for falling from. As a ruiner of your appetite, though, he succeeds. Centipedes and gangrene are pretty much a winning combo that way.

4. Homer Simpson “Ironic Punishment” – The Simpsons.

When Homer gets sent to Hell, he’s punished for his gluttony by having to eat donuts forever. Too bad the demons couldn’t figure out that he’d never get sick of it (perhaps it was secretly Heaven all along). This deluxe box set featured a mechanism to keep Homer chowing down for as long as you might choose… unfortunately, it didn’t always work so well. Just like overeating. The joke with this toy was that even when Todd McFarlane got The Simpsons license, he figured out a way to do a toy of somebody getting tortured.

3. Boomer Zombie – Left 4 Dead.

How do zombies go to the bathroom? They eat all the time, but you never see them pull down their pants. Think about it – they must have the most disgusting underwear ever. Except maybe this guy, who seems to hold it all in his stomach until he splits in half.

2. Feverish – Tortured Souls Series 2.

Yo, your figure’s so fat…

How fat is he?

He so fat, demons be eatin’ the leftovers inside his ruptured stomach!

Hey, listen, if my snaps were good, I’d be an insult comic for a living. Instead, I have to speculate what was going through the mind of Todd McFarlane and Clive Barker when they came up with this digusting S.O.B.

1. Jabba Glob – Star Wars Episode I.

“Jabba the Hutt” is pretty much a universal euphemism for anybody you know who’s fat and lazy – frankly, he makes us think George Lucas probably had a pothead roommate at some point, who sat molded to the couch smoking and eating, possibly with a creepy little sidekick who had a high-pitched laugh all the time (where Jabba watched the Rancor actually eat people, Lucas’ hypothetical stoner roommate – nothing at all like any I might have had, or so I’ll tell the cops if they ask – just watched animals eating each other on the Discovery Channel, while exclaiming “HAAAAA! That’s fucked up.”) Point being, there have been several Jabba toys, but only one that eats slime and frogs (yeah yeah, Chubas, whatever). Then you could squeeze him and he’d puke it up, in a scene we don’t remember in any movie, but maybe Disney’s next director can bring the CGI and insert digital barf – and we ain’t talking John Candy – back into The Phantom Menace. What ‘ll happen if someone squeezes you after tomorrow’s dinner?

Did I leave out your favorite glutton figure? By all means, post some links in comments below. And bon appetit!

]]>http://nerdist.com/figures-speech-thanksgivings-five-most-gluttonous-action-figures/feed/1LYT Review: The Twi, Twi Again Saga – Breaking “Red Dawn”http://nerdist.com/lyt-review-the-twi-twi-again-saga-breaking-red-dawn/
http://nerdist.com/lyt-review-the-twi-twi-again-saga-breaking-red-dawn/#commentsWed, 21 Nov 2012 17:00:22 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=60581We may have found it, folks; the closest thing to a male version of Twilight that Hollywood can muster. Pretty-faced actors looking older than they are running around in the Pacific Northwest woods with too much hair product and abilities they shouldn’t realistically have, facing down absurd threats and the most preposterously exaggerated villains you can imagine. Just replace kissing with killing, and you get Red Dawn, the remake, which is actually more entertaining than the 1984 original… though that isn’t saying a lot. (Watch me get quoted out of context on that one)

Nostalgia goggles aside, the original is mostly notable for two things: the cast that would one day become all-star, featuring the likes of Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen, and a single famous over-the-top moment from Harry Dean Stanton:

But most have forgotten the rest of the film. Case in point: who are the main bad guys in the original Red Dawn?

Russians? No. I said “main.” The premise is a Soviet invasion, but the main on-camera villains who are individually delineated are from Cuba, illegally crossing the Mexican border posing as immigrants; the right-wing agitation at the time was for fighting perceived communist influences in places like Nicaragua. It all led to deals like Iran-Contra, which we’re not sure people were all that happy about in the end. But politics aside, an invasion run by Cubans and Nicaraguans on the front lines was actually no less absurd then as a North Korean invading force backed by Russia would be now. Well, okay, maybe less; NK is more famous for malnutrition and an inability to launch missiles successfully. In both cases, the movies stack the deck pre-credits with a series of escalating global crises precisely and preposterously building to only one possible outcome.

But it’s a new world, and there are new points of reference. Jed is this time played by Chris Hemsworth, and he’s an actual Marine home from Iraq, which makes the training of a bunch of high-schoolers into guerillas slightly more believable (also more believable: some of these teens are dating. The original’s director, John Milius, had zero interest in romance). And when his homeland becomes the occupied country, with occupiers claiming they just want to help, he gives a speech about how in Iraq, he was one of the good guys keeping order and now he’s a bad guy, who must fight a guerilla war like the Iraqis. It’s a welcome note of ambiguity in a movie not targeting the type of audience who’ll think long about such things.

They’re surprisingly resilient, these North Koreans; also taller and more Chinese-looking than you’d expect. That’s because they were Chinese, until producers realized that annoying China was a bad idea financially. It’s a shame, because that would be an interesting “what if” scenario; China has the means to pose a legit threat. North Korea? Only with the aid of a magical EMP weapon that takes out submarines but leaves cars running just fine. It’s as if no-one ever saw The Day After, and its memorable scene of cars all dying at once after a distant air-burst.

So what makes the newer movie more fun? Mostly it’s that the action is done better, with a raid on occupied police headquarters from above being a key set piece far more interesting than the fighting of a tank in a field. It may not have a sight gag to match the prying of guns from cold, dead hands, but it does feature a major victory for capitalism when a Subway sandwich artist saves the day with supplies.

Not everything is better, however – an ending that seems oddly construed to leave way for a sequel is highly irritating in both its inconclusiveness and presumption (given the film’s fate on the shelf for so long and the other terrible reviews, it’s safe to say no sequel is happening), when the best thing about the original was its ending that both extolled necessary wars and pointed out their pointlessness. And while Jed’s dad still gets a great dramatic moment, would it really have been to much for the words “avenge” and “me” to appear therein? Even cheap applause is worth something in a cheesefest like this one. If it had actually been made in the ’80s, Chris Hemsworth might be one of the stars of the Expendables franchise today. Yeah, we’re assuming his being born earlier, and… ehh, never mind. I’m saying this is more of a Chuck Norris-type unintentional goof than a self-serious Milius diatribe.

If you need brainless action this weekend, you could do worse. But a second-run theater with scratches and pops on a used print, if they exist any more, might make it even more…uh…”good”?

]]>http://nerdist.com/lyt-review-the-twi-twi-again-saga-breaking-red-dawn/feed/2LYT Review: “Twilight” Finale Breaks Like the Windhttp://nerdist.com/lyt-review-twilight-finale-breaks-like-the-wind/
http://nerdist.com/lyt-review-twilight-finale-breaks-like-the-wind/#commentsFri, 16 Nov 2012 12:00:34 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=60116Kristen Stewart leaping into the air and tearing out the throat of a mountain lion with her teeth. Yelling “You nicknamed my daughter after THE LOCH NESS MONSTER?” at Taylor Lautner. Dakota Fanning casually tossing a small child onto a bonfire. The gay panic that ensues when Jacob strips down in front of Bella’s dad before showing off his wolf transformation. The fact that one of the vampires’ powers is an evil “paralyzing vapor” (bonus points for it being Cameron Bright, the weird kid from movies like Godsend and Ultraviolet, now a creepy teen). The way vampires casually twist each others’ heads off in battle like they’re all Worzel Gummidge (congratulate yourself if you catch that reference). Bella and Edward zooming through the forest at a breakneck pace like speeder bikes through Endor. Michael Sheen’s insane giggle. These are some of the moments in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 that caused me to crack a smile, at the very least. You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, but director Bill Condon is the only helmer in the franchise’s history to understand that you can make a decent barbecue sandwich with any cut of pig, provided you overcook it and add enough Cheez Whiz.

Treating the material with all the seriousness it deserves, which is to say absolutely none, Condon already elevated Part 1 to the minor camp that was a significant improvement over all prior attempts to be deathly earnest about sparkling vampires with multiple-choice vampire superpowers. Honestly, if Stephenie Meyer had simply called them mutants or aliens instead, there’d be less fuss – the blood drinking is barely relevant, and the sheer number of characters with different abilities who show up for the grand finale make this feel like a dumber version of an X-Men sequel. At least when we men alter vampire stories that extensively in the other direction, removing the romance and keeping only the biting and undead ugliness, we have the decency to call them something different… you know, zombies.

“I still hate surprises – that hasn’t changed!” exclaims Bella (Stewart) shortly before being given a fully loaded house totally free, and demonstrating exactly why the fan base relates – they, too, appear to love the predictable. And I mean that literally, as early on in the story, we get a genuine psychic prediction that the dictatorial Volturi are on their way to make trouble for Bella, Edward and baby Renesmee (Mackenzie Foy and some digital effects), and then spend the rest of the movie waiting around for that inevitable event to happen. In the meantime, our heroes… wait for it… recruit witnesses. That’s right: basically the entire plot of the movie is the equivalent of serving subpoenas, all around the world, as needlessly narrated in voice-over by Bella. Bring on the drunk Irish vampires, the New Orleans Anne Rice wannabe rock star vampires, the Amazon-dwelling vampires (always accompanied by tribal drumming on the soundtrack, natch), the stereotypical Eastern European vampires, the Egyptian weather-controlling vampires (ever think about giving that desert a little more rain, fellas?), the crazy Alaskan vampires (insert former V.P. candidate joke there if you so choose), and more.

Oh, but don’t worry – there’s time for Bella and Edward to have PG-13 sex. The bed gets off a lot easier than before. There’s a lot of time, actually, and all the better to hear the multiple terrible romantic pop songs crammed on the soundtrack in order to sell CDs. Plus there’s a moment that feels like a massive in-joke for K-Stew haters, in which the newly vampirized Bella has to be taught how to act like a real human being.

And let us not forget the super-creepy Jacob-Renesmee relationship, in which, having “imprinted,” the ab-licious young man is now destined to go from being the infant child’s bodyguard/babysitter to her lover when she reaches the ripe old accelerated-maturity age of… seven. C’mon, Stephenie Meyer, it never occurred to you that this was just the least bit creepy? As is Jacob’s excuse that he can’t help how he is, something pedophiles also say? Have to admit, in an age of Hollywood unoriginality, I’ve never before seen an onscreen love triangle conclude by having one of the participants say he was never really in love with the girl anyway – it was in fact an attraction to her unborn daughter that hadn’t even been conceived yet! So props for that, maybe? Ick. Not that Edward can really morally object to this path for his child; he is, after all, a hundred-plus year-old dude who knocked up a high-school chick.

To Condon’s credit, he concludes things with a bang, turning what might have felt like a cheat in another movie into a way to give fans a cinematically satisfying conclusion while honoring Meyer’s anticlimactic fizzle at the same time. Whether you love the series or hate it, the battle sequence that the posters allude to is one at least worth a watch on cable someday, as well as the most male-friendly moment of the whole shebang. All I’ll offer in terms of detail is this: Edward and Bella finally bring it like the pro-wrestling tag team they were meant to be, with double-finishers worthy of the Hart Foundation, or perhaps more fittingly the Rock and Sock Connection. Just one question: how did all those Volturi get from Italy to the Pacific Northwest in their giant vampire robes without arousing suspicion? Did they just take one large flying leap right over the Atlantic (which would be as plausible as anything else in this universe)? Take a private jet? Given how long it takes them to show up, perhaps they were on a boat.

There seems to have been an overall lowering of critical standards when it comes to Twilight, one that perhaps I’ve fallen into – after hating the first one, I do try to give credit where it’s due, but let’s get real: you could shoot two straight hours of Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner breaking wind, call it Twilight, and fans would still love it. So there’s no need to tailor a review to the base unless you’re going to gush, and maybe you’ve guessed by now that I’m not. The bottom line is that it isn’t a very good movie, but there is plenty of fun to be had with it: some laughs are intentional, others not, and different audience members may find different reasons to cheer for certain characters to get their comeuppances. I know this movie wasn’t made for me; if you’re not a hardcore fan, it probably wasn’t made for you either.

Unless you’re a stoner. Because in that case, I suspect it totally was.

And now it’s over. Here’s hoping the next big thing is more fun.

Just so you know, my very brief takes on the others in the series for comparison:

Twilight: Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb.

New Moon: Not too bad once you accept the absurd premise. More cinematically thought-out than I expected. Also has the best “sparkly vampire” effects, by a freakin’ longshot.

Eclipse: Crap. Wants to be two different movies; succeeds at neither. Decent tries at comedic banter.

I’m tempted to say that the title of the movie Starlet is too cute by half. Yes, the movie is about a young woman in Los Angeles trying to make a name for herself in showbiz… but check this out: it’s actually her dog that’s named “Starlet”! Also, the dog is male. So he’s symbolic of grafting artificial facades onto reality, or something. But is the movie about the dog? Not really. Except that when you look back on it, the dog serves as an extraordinarily convenient plot device. Need the drama to advance? Have the dog do something out of character. But then, being a gender-confused dog, name-wise, maybe the point is that being “out of character” is its character. This could be over-thinking the whole thing. Bottom line: the canine is a plot device, but not the protagonist.

Official descriptions of the film note that Jane (Dree Hemingway, daughter of Mariel) is an actress, but they don’t say precisely what kind – while a late revelation, it’s sorta key to the plot, but, well… maybe you can guess from what I’ve already written. We’ll just say that this is another case of labels versus reality.

Jane lives in a house with fellow actress Melissa (Stella Maeve) and her boyfriend, both of whom are whiny, annoying and controlling – Jane’s room gets hijacked for movie shoots with little notice, and is not to be too personalized. When Jane suggests Ikea furniture, Melissa suggests that yard sales are cheaper, and so it is that Jane ends up with a large thermos that its previous owner, the 80-something Sadie (Besedka Johnson) is all cranky about (think “No, just candy, Ned! Ninety dollars!”).

But there’s a hidden bonus: the thermos turns out to contain several rolls of hundred-dollar bills. Now, if that were me finding them, I’d sit on that for a while. Seen too many movies where people who find money spend it all, then have their lives threatened by whoever it was that lost the cash. But Jane’s 21, and has seen less movies than I have, so she goes shopping, buying Starlet a bejeweled collar and herself several nice outfits. What wadded cash remains, she hides in a tall boot in her closet. It would totally be out of character for her nice, docile dog to ever mess with it there, right? (Remember what I said about plot devices.)

Though it never seems to occur to Jane that she might, say, have drug money on her hands (and thankfully the movie does not go that hackneyed route either), she does feel guilty, and as such begins to stalk Sadie, at one point getting rid of a cab so she can give the old lady a ride home. Hilariously, this modern Miss Daisy responds with mace before her inevitable softening around the edges. Over the course of several meetings, it becomes clear that Sadie is unaware of the money loss, and in fact, has more than she knows what to do with. Whatever has turned her into a cranky recluse, it isn’t poverty.

Similar stories have been told onscreen before: Jacques Thelemaque’s The Dogwalker featured the bonding of damaged women with a similar age gap, and as the title suggests, employed the use of dogs. And director Sean Baker has done at least one version of the unlikely bonding drama before, in the excellent Prince of Broadway, about a hustler stuck with a baby. What makes Starlet stronger is the exceptional cinematography work by former gaffer Radium Cheung, which lends even the ugly scenes a fairytale quality, and the solid lead performances. I imagine there are lots of talented senior actors who never got their big break for one reason or another, so really it shouldn’t be that surprising when one turns in something great, but Johnson certainly resembles that remark. Maeve is outstanding in her willingness to come off as shallow, neurotic, dependent and unlikable as her character really would be, while Hemingway, who must play it nicer than reality to make us like her at all, proves a compelling onscreen presence.

There’s more I’m not saying, and perhaps you can glean it from the trailer if you know what you’re looking for. I’ll just add that unlike so many deconstructions of the Hollywood dream that show the darkness beneath, Starlet does that and still lets us keep dreaming in the best way. You could argue that’s dishonest, and maybe there can be a sequel where Jane’s approaching forty and things suck for her. Until then, we can bask in her youthful optimism, and it’s nice to be reminded of that.

Starlet is currently playing in limited release. If you missed it at AFI, it’s actually worth paying for.

]]>http://nerdist.com/afi-fest-2012-starlet/feed/0Figures & Speech: Gears of War Erector Set Centaurhttp://nerdist.com/figures-speech-gears-of-war-erector-set-centaur/
http://nerdist.com/figures-speech-gears-of-war-erector-set-centaur/#commentsWed, 14 Nov 2012 20:00:03 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=59844I never liked Erector sets – or the European equivalent, Meccano – when I was a kid. I would probably like the Gears of War games if I played them, but I never have. If this makes me supremely unqualified to review a Gears of War Erector set, so be it. I’m doin’ this shiz anyway.

Erector/Meccano always struck me as unnecessarily un-fun. I didn’t have a technical mind as a kid, so I didn’t want to try and bolt things together or play with miniature tools. More for me was Lego, with which I could create spaceships that didn’t have to be realistic, and fit together without endless twisting and screwing. Yes, the whole tool/erector theme can easily lead to dirty jokes, which is why I’m going to make the one, and only one, in this review right now: I find it possible, after putting this thing together, that it’s called Erector because it seriously wears out my wrists. Moving on…

Unlike classic Erector sets, this one doesn’t have a lot of versatility – there’s exactly one shape you can build from it. Really, it’s more like a G.I. Joe vehicle that has to be built with metal screws rather than snap-together latches. So why not just make action figures? Presumably because NECA has that license, and calling these construction toys makes them fall under a different contract. Just to emphasize this point, the otherwise nicely sculpted minifigs have Lego-ish hands, which, sadly, don’t really hold onto anything. Articulation is decent, though the Locust bad guys curiously have elbows that bend right to left rather than up to down. And yes, I know enough to know these guys are called Locusts, yet have no clue why, as they don’t look a damn thing like their namesake bugs. The set also comes with good guys Marcus Fenix and Augustus Cole, and since Fenix is the hero, he comes with pretty much every set in this series, all of which are good-guy vehicles. The baddies in this line are the most overmatched in any toy line of recent memory – no firepower to them except handguns.

The image to the left shows the detail at enlarged size – for scale, here’s Marcus Fenix next to a standard Star Wars R2-D2 figure (apologies for my terrible macro-focus). Apologies also that I don’t have any Mega Bloks Halo figures to compare with, but he could probably fight Spartans decently:

Okay, so it’s time to get started on this thing.

Li’l baggies for everything. Tough plastic, too. I had to stretch it quite a bit before busting these guys out. Now, the instructions. I get why parents used to dig Erector toys – they’re practice for working with tools around the house later in life. Though when I see this:

…I’m thinking it’s practice for the days to come in which the young ones will move out of the house and buy Ikea. Then, instead of punching a hole through the wall when they haul that stuff home and see how many fiddly things they have to do before using it, maybe, just possibly, the now well-adjusted adult will say, “Oh, just like my Erector set! No problemo!” I will give Erector this – the instructions feature CG illustrations, which are way better than hand drawings. But then you get to a part like this here:

Okay. See those two thin, spindly parts? They are, apparently, TOTALLY DIFFERENT FROM EACH OTHER. Though they look exactly the same. Except, wait! Tiny numbers stamped on the pieces! That I cannot read in regular light! I may be getting elderly or something, but whipping out the cell phone to shine on the pieces saved me from square peg/round hole syndrome, or in this case, I should say – slightly rounded peg/microscopically differently rounded hole.

And yes, I had to undo/redo some screwings at least twice. Here’s what I had done after half an hour:

Does the toy need that many metal screws? No, it does not. Except to keep it in the (wink-wink, nudge-nudge) construction category. At $34.99, a vehicle with four figures and this much metal is a decent deal. Here’s a bit of knowledge, though, that I wish everyone from Ikea to Erector would take note of, because my bargain-store metal shelves always do – give us a couple more nuts and screws than we need. Because they’re tiny and easy to lose, and misplacing two of them really held things up. Then there are the stickers – thankfully plastic-based rather than paper-based (remember when G.I. Joe vehicles went to paper ones for a while? That sucked). No guide to tell you how to put them on, but most are easily guessable…to adult me. Maybe not so much to a kid.

Took me sixty minutes or so, but I finally ended up with this. Guess I’m still not really an Erector kinda (big) kid.

See my cell phone for scale comparison. My main problem with the finished vehicle is that Marcus cannot fit in the cockpit sitting down, and yet it’s too loose for him to stand. So he mainly just falls out, and those hands, as mentioned before, don’t grip too well. Other than that, it’s a cool little vehicle that reminds me of my G.I. Joe days. But dads, if you’re the sort of father who has to put everything together for the kid, ask yourself – are you up for spending an hour on this? (In fairness, maybe I shouldn’t expect most dads to be as lousy as me with tools. But then again, these tools are designed for small hands, not dad-hands.)

Other sets in the series include the COG Armadillo tank, COG King Raven helicopter, and Locusts versus Delta Squad Battle Set (which also includes the Armadillo). prices range from $24.99 to $59.99, and they’re currently available exclusively at Toys R Us.

I’ve never been a fan of the term “Mumblecore,” but I think that may be because I’ve been mercifully unexposed to it. The Duplass brothers, for example, don’t mumble – they yell, argue and generally try to be funny. I’ve never seen a Joe Swanberg film, and have no immediate plans to. But I did see two films at AFI Fest, both of which involve semi-autobiographical characters on a trip who talk in low voices, and talk some more, en route to what may be a destination where something might happen, or not. I think they’re probably both Mumblecore, but they also serve as case studies in how to get this kind of thing right, or go terribly wrong. In the spirit of such classic cautionary takes as Goofus and Gallant, or any number of ironic faux-fifties instructional filmstrips, I give you the dos and don’ts of Mumblecore as embodied by The Most Fun I’ve Ever Had with My Pants On(do) and The International Sign for Choking(don’t).

-Do give your movie an entertainingly pointless and misleading title, so long as dialogue at some point in the movie explains what it means.

-Don’t make said title remind viewers of an uncomfortable, painful thing that they can easily envision.

-Do, if you cast yourself, play to your strengths. Are you beautiful and female? Great; that makes many audience members resentful and jealous. Keep that in mind and throw all your negative traits out there upfront. They’ll sympathize with you later.

-Don’t, if you cast yourself, make it look like an ego trip. Are you a whiny, nebbishy dork type? Then, tempting as it may be, never make yourself the romantic lead,make the movie about your own love life, or give yourself a sex scene. Woody Allen got away with it by being really, really funny. You’re not him.

-Do ultimately have a point, preferably one that reveals itself at the end, so we’re all, “A-ha! The apparently pointless dialogue was actually masking a deep-seated _________.” Like in The Brown Bunny, when [spoiler] we finally learn that all the brooding was because Vincent Gallo was pining for a BJ from a dead girl [end spoiler].

-Don’t make us read the online synopsis to have to figure out what that point was supposed to be.

-Do find great-looking locations. The American southwest is a prime one, especially since you can probably find awesome desert areas where nobody will check for permits. Make a movie like this look beautiful enough, and you can be the next Sofia Coppola (apart from the whole famous-dad-giving-you-a-hand-up thing).

-Don’t set your movie someplace potentially amazing, like Buenos Aires, and then keep most of the story (such as it is) indoors.

-Do make it feel honest. A tragi-comedy about scattering your dad’s ashes, dedicated to the memory of your dad, possibly even showing him in some footage, feels emotionally honest. A drama about getting laid while trying to track down an ex does not, even if it is based on something real.

-Don’t withhold too much information. We get it; you want to be artsy and perhaps think you can pull a Claire Denis, showing us only the scenes that happen between the important bits. But if you’re going to have a slow pace, give us something to help us feel that it’s worth sticking along for the ride.

Given how relatively easy these sorts of films are to make, I expect to be seeing plenty more in my life. Should you, dear reader, be the maker of such a film, please heed the advice above. And should you just be a viewer in the mood fora wonderfully shot piece of drama hinging on conversation, interaction and alienation, go see The Most Fun I’ve Ever Had with My Pants On rather than The International Sign for Choking.

]]>http://nerdist.com/afi-fest-2012-the-goofus-and-gallant-of-mumblecore-movies/feed/0LYT Review: A Contrarian Take on “Skyfall”http://nerdist.com/lyt-review-a-contrarian-take-on-skyfall/
http://nerdist.com/lyt-review-a-contrarian-take-on-skyfall/#commentsTue, 13 Nov 2012 01:00:50 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=59684Imagine, if you will, that at a key moment in The Dark Knight Rises, Bane had taunted his black-clad foe by suddenly singing “Da na na na na na na…BAT MAN!” Or that Officer John Blake, on discovering the Batcave at the end, had exclaimed “Holy subterranean lair!” It would have certainly gotten a cheap laugh, reminding people of the Batman they liked before. It might even have been some audience members’ favorite moment. Yet by any sensible story standard, it would have been out of place. Skyfall features more than one analogous bit, and while it did make me smile during what was otherwise a more tedious film than I’d hoped for, it just doesn’t say much for a new Bond film when the only fun parts are those that blatantly smack you in the face with a reminder that there are previous movies in the series you like better.

Calling this a Bond film is less accurate in many ways than calling it a Sam Mendes film, and if you like Sam Mendes (he of American Beauty) as a director, that’s good news. I liked him in person, and he seems thoughtful – but with the exception of Jarhead and some parts of Away We Go, I find his work tediously “artistic” in an overly obvious way. By the third or fourth time in Skyfall that I saw a medium shot of a character, often from behind, in a large empty room to signify their isolation, I wanted to scream, “Enough already!” When one such character, having made a tough decision, looks out the window and it immediately starts to rain, I half-expected a black plastic bag to float elegantly by in the wind.

The story wants to have it two ways – it’s both an origin story and a “gettin’ too old for this shit” movie in which Bond goes back and forth between, say, Chris Pine’s proto-Captain Kirk, and William Shatner’s “still got it, but barely” Wrath of Khan old Kirk. We are constantly told that he’s aging, out of shape and alcoholic (thankfully, no cheap gags about 007 at a 12-step meeting; Wreck-It Ralph pretty much owns that routine), even though continuity-wise, this ought to still be one of his first major missions… and Craig is notably younger than some previous Bonds were in certain movies. It’s as if, after reclaiming the title Casino Royale for the official franchise, the Broccolis wanted to remake Never Say Never Again as well – a movie, that, by the way, managed to still be fun even while dealing with an aging Bond worried about the future.

The opening sequence is the most classic part, with an exuberant chase that includes Bond swinging around a giant backhoe that’s having to hold together a moving train, and a culmination that sets up a way for Bond to disappear forever should he so choose. Events transpire to bring back our hero when MI6 and M (Judi Dench) herself come under attack from a powerful cyber-stalker who happens to have a very old grudge against her. Barely passing the physical tests, Bond resurfaces for love of boss and country, teamed with field agent Eve (Naomie Harris), with whom he does have a delightfully playful banter – their dialogue scenes together are among the film’s highlights, and their unconsummated (on-camera, anyway) shaving scene is one of the hottest moments ever in the Craig movies.

Even though he doesn’t actually show up until a good hour or so into the film, it’s no spoiler at this stage to say that the villain is Silva (Javier Bardem), who’s sort of the anti-Bond, a former agent gone rogue who appears to be as flamboyantly gay as Bond is heterosexual – though the only plot purpose to this is a lone gay-panic joke that Bond deftly reverses. Nonetheless, I’m surprised GLAAD isn’t up in arms at Silva’s mincing manner.

Far more troubling, though, is the secondary Bond girl of the story: Severine, played by Berenice Marlohe. Her backstory is one of an underage sex worker, rescued by Silva to basically do his bidding. She wants Bond to save her, but instead he uses her sexually to get to Silva. Consent or no, there’s something icky about that, especially when we consider the time Roger Moore did the right thing and kicked a too-young girl out of his bed in For Your Eyes Only. Craig’s Bond is supposedly cold, but that level of manipulation – especially if you’ve ever known somebody who actually has been abused – does not sit easily. (Then again, I suppose if you’ve ever known anyone killed by a spy, Bond probably really sucks for you.)

Yes, the title “Skyfall” is explained, and it’s more of a shrug than a revelation, kicking off a segment that plays more like The A-Team than Bond and features an unusually useless Albert Finney. Some have made the case that, like Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark, Bond is a singularly ineffective hero here, such that everything would have happened more or less the way it does without him being in the picture. I don’t think that’s the case because Bond is integral to Silva’s revenge (if not entirely crucial), but I do think the his plan feels overly similar to Loki’s from The Avengers, hinging on a similarly pointless moment of deliberate capture. Ben Whishaw’s younger Q makes sense in this context as a hacker, more so than Bardem, though I am sorry not to see John Cleese back.

Oh, but what about that cinematography by Roger Deakins, which everyone is going out of their way to mention? Color me a little less than overwhelmed – when a key moment depends upon two men fighting in silhouette and you’re supposed to be rooting for one of them but cannot tell which he is because photographing the shadows in front of the pretty skyscraper is more appealing, you’ve lost the point. It’s never a good idea to imagine what motivates other writers, but does anybody else get the sense that Deakins is being name-dropped so much in reviews because he’s one of maybe three cinematographers the average writer knows by name, by heart? Janusz Kaminski and Wally Pfister would be the other two, BTW.

Skyfall isn’t without its charms, most of which would be the actors, including a barely mentioned Ralph Fiennes. And it’s certainly better than the middle two Brosnan films. But just as Marc Forster went off the rails in Quantum of Solace during that silly horse-race juxtaposition, so too does Mendes go overboard with the deconstruction/dysfunction. Auteurs doing Bond may be a fun new gimmick – and one that seems to be working financially and critically. But for my tastes, it isn’t in the franchise’s best interests.

It would seem that is ONLY my taste, however.

]]>http://nerdist.com/lyt-review-a-contrarian-take-on-skyfall/feed/43Interview: Sam Mendes’ Revolutionary Road to Directing James Bondhttp://nerdist.com/interview-sam-mendes-revolutionary-road-to-directing-james-bond/
http://nerdist.com/interview-sam-mendes-revolutionary-road-to-directing-james-bond/#commentsMon, 12 Nov 2012 15:00:59 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=59388On paper, Sam Mendes and James Bond might not seem to be the best fit. On the one hand, you have the director of movies like Jarhead and American Beauty, which unearth the dysfunction beneath cultural archetypes. On the other, a franchise with strict expectations not exactly known for its auteurs, and traditionally better suited to more action-oriented guys like Martin Campbell. Yet Skyfall looks on track to be the biggest and best-liked Bond yet, as audiences and critics reward what had once been viewed as an outdated series for taking some creative chances. Whether you have or have not seen it already, we hope our interview with Mendes about all things Bond will leave you stirred, not shaken.

Nerdist: When you direct a Bond movie, do you get to direct the trippy credit sequence as well, or is that outsourced?

Sam Mendes: That’s outsourced, to a man in this case called Danny Kleinman. I gave him a very clear brief, which was I wanted it to be Bond sort of going down into the underworld, in a way; sort of journey through his unconscious. And then he does storyboards, and you give notes on the storyboards, then he does an animated storyboard, and you give notes on those – you know, it goes back and forth – but really, it’s his work, and he’s pretty great.

N: I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say we learn more about Bond’s backstory in this movie than you do probably in any other Bond movie. Was that presented to you as something you were going to do, or was that something you specifically wanted to explore?

SM: Nothing was presented to me in the movie because when I came on there was no script – not even a treatment, really – so it was something that I was interested to explore, and I pushed it with the producers, and they seemed to love the idea, so they went with it. But you know, I didn’t invent it; it was all there in the Fleming. It just had never been addressed in the movies before, only in the books.

N: It feels in a way like the culmination of a trilogy. Was that presented as something for you to think about, or did you just think about it on its own?

SM: I don’t think it’s a trilogy at all. The first two movies are linked, but this is not linked in any way, really. It’s just a stand-alone story. So for me – I know everyone’s obsessed with trilogies these days, but it’s not a trilogy. There’s another movie coming out, and another one after that, so I think they’ll all be their own thing.

N: Although this one basically takes care of all his origins and gets Daniel Craig to where the other Bond was.

SM: Possibly, yes. You could argue that, yeah.

N: A running theme throughout a lot of your work is the subversion of what you see on the outside, like you’ve got a beautiful married couple, but they’re actually miserable; or you’re a Marine going to war, but then the war doesn’t happen. With the Bond movie there is obviously some subversion but there are also some definite expectations of what the movie holds. Was that a tricky balance to do?

SM: I think the balance is everything, isn’t it? It’s trying to find a way of providing the things you expect from a Bond movie, but at the same time making the familiar strange again, and a lot of it is I think trying to find a way to make Bond – to make an audience invest in Bond in some way, when really, for a long time, he was just a given. He was an unchanging character. Certainly in the Roger Moore years he was an unchanging character. And here, you could argue that Bond is the person who changes the most in the story. It’s all about the balance. It’s a peculiar pressure to have, to know that you have to do certain things in a story, when the story hasn’t even been written yet. But at the end of the day I think you have to embrace that, and that’s the particular requirements of a movie like this, and it would be crazy to complain about it. If you don’t want to do action, do something else! (laughs)

N: Was Wrath of Khan an inspiration at all? I kind of got a vibe…

SM: No, it will be appalling to you and the readers of your website, but I’ve never seen it, so I don’t know what you mean.

N: Wow! You’ll be astonished at the parallels if you ever do see it.

SM: Oh really? I’d better watch it then, hadn’t I?

N: So was it an interesting transition to do large-scale action? You’ve never really done action on a scale like this. Was that a challenge?

SM: Big challenge, yeah! And it was one of the reasons I wanted to do it. I wanted to test myself against that and experience it, really, and I discovered I had very specific ways I wanted to do it. [Cinematographer] Roger Deakins and I wanted to focus on it in a more classical way and not do it handheld and not multi-camera too often. So it’s done in the classical way. But yeah, that was one of the things that most attracted me to it. And then on top of that, I wanted to create a movie where the action was integral to the story, rather than a stand-alone – I think often in action movies the story stops, the action sequence starts for 10 minutes, and then the story starts again, and I tried as much as possible to create parallel action and not get trapped in a linear chase. So that’s why the things are shaped in that particular way.

N: Does it feel as much to you like a Sam Mendes movie as a Bond movie? Do you feel like you could really put a directorial stamp on it?

SM: It feels to me weirdly as personal as anything I’ve done. I was worried that that wouldn’t be the case when I started, and I was worried that it would be a committee driven movie, and I wanted to establish that wouldn’t be the case straight out. But when you’ve got producers as strong, and yet as trusting, as Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson , it’s much easier to make the movie. They keep the studio at bay, and they said from the beginning that we don’t want a Bond movie, we want your Bond movie. And if I hadn’t felt that, I wouldn’t have done it. But looking at it now, it feels no less personal than anything else I’ve done.

N: What was it about Bond that used to appeal to you the most, and has that changed now that you’ve taken this on?

SM: It’s changed completely, yeah, because I was a 12 year old, 11 year old, when I saw Bond and it was the mystery of the adult world, and adult sex and glamorous locations, and great chases. I think those things are now provided by many other movies, as well as Bond, so I think it forces you to ask what’s the definition of Bond that isn’t all those things. To me what’s interesting about it is the complexity of him as a character and his enduring popularity, and why that should be. And in this movie there is a discussion about what’s the point of Bond, really, and what’s the point of the secret intelligence service, and what’s the point of MI6, and shouldn’t we all grow up and move on, you know? And Bond and M mount a counterargument, and by the end I think that probably you know which side I’m on.

N: One of the factors in (at least) modern Bond movies is there’s always product placement. Was that something that was tough to deal with, or was it natural?

SM: No, actually, there was a lot of fuss made about it beforehand, by the press, but I found it not important at all, because what happens is Barbara and Mike come to you early on and say “We have a relationship with six companies. Are any of these a problem for you? Do you think you can you find a way to use these?” And I’d say “Well, those two – no.” You can say “No, I can’t use those in this movie.” Because there’s nowhere they could be. There’s no scenes involving those things. And they’d say “Fine.” And they’d go back to those companies and say “We can’t use you in this picture.” But the other four were things that were going to have to happen anyway. Bond is going to have to have drinks, and it will be that drink. He’s going to have to wear a watch; it might as well be that watch. It didn’t matter to me, and I didn’t compromise the movie in any way in order to get them in, so it wasn’t an issue.

N: It’s funny, people make a huge deal about, “He’s going to drink Heineken instead of a martini,” but then when you see it you go “Well, he drinks Heineken when he’s kind of depressed.”

SM: Yeah, and he drinks a martini when he’s not. But you know, that’s because they didn’t listen to what we were saying. They wanted a story, and we said “It’s not a big deal, he drinks all sorts of alcohol in the books.” Everything from beer to martinis to whiskey to everything! He drinks heavily – people did in those days – but that’s all they had to go on, and they needed to write a story about it, but it really isn’t a story.

N: Was there a conscious effort to go back to the books a bit more than, say, Roger Moore would have done?

SM: The spirit of the books, yes. Not really the details of the books. Particularly the last trilogy of the books, which are very much Bond at his darkest, and most confused, and most conflicted. We borrowed a lot of details from those books.

N: OK, this one might be a minor spoiler, but I don’t think it’s one of the key ones. When Javier Bardem takes out his teeth, I want to know how you did that shot – what happened there?

SM: Well, I don’t think I want to give away the trade secrets there. Suffice it to say, some of it is real and some of it is visual effect. But quite a lot of it is real, so along with everything in the movie, I tried as much as possible to get everything in-camera, and to get as much as possible, you know, for real, and then only ever supplement it, enlarge it, and tweak it in visual effects. And the same is the case with that.

N: As much as I really like the new Q, I feel kind of sad that John Cleese only got to do it once. Was there every any talk of having him?

SM: (laughs) No, there wasn’t, but you’re right – it’s weird, one always forgets that he played it. But no, there was no talk of that.

N: Ralph Fiennes – I was amazed he was in this, because I hadn’t heard. Was there a conscious effort to cast him based on, shall we say, previous actors who have been in the series?

SM: No, it was very much – I don’t really want to talk about what happens to his character, so for me it was really important that we had a few surprises in store for his character.

N: Another thing that has been a sort of tempest in a teapot is when Bond suggests he may have seduced a man in the past.

SM: Right. Well, in the scene, if you see it, if you take it out of context you don’t understand, but when you watch it in the scene, Silva (Javier Bardem’s character) is really fucking with him. I wouldn’t say he definitely wants to fuck him. I think you have to see the movie. What I love about it is they’re playing a power game, the two of them, and you never know whether he’s being real or not. And I certainly won’t tell you what I think!

N: I think it’s clear in this movie, and in the Craig movies in general, that Bond is sort of using seduction as a means to an end. I think a lot of people grew up with Bond and they thought he was just this romantic guy, charms the ladies and they just go for his charm. It’s kind of clearer in this that he’s using it for a purpose. Is that something that you wanted to clarify?

SM: I think that’s what Daniel brings with him. There’s a sort of toughness there, but also a vulnerability, and I think what I love about – you know, you can say that, but on the other hand, no Bond has ever, to my mind, fallen in love as convincingly as Daniel did in Casino Royale. So you could say it’s the area in between, that there are those that he’s using, and there are those that he really falls for. I think it’s the area in between that’s maybe less so than the previous movies.

N: How do you choose the specific exotic locales that Bond’s going to go to? I know there’s always an expectation that he’s going to go all over the world. What’s the process like?

SM: You choose the locations that mean something in the context of the story, really. Shanghai is really a place where Bond is still detached and not at his most confident, and somehow we needed to take him to a modernist, slightly alienating landscape because he’s somehow not yet fully himself. So it’s trying to find locations that mean something in the story, rather than just sort of ticking off locations that Bond hasn’t been to in the past.

N: Having done this, are you interested in doing more action movies, or returning to more dramatic ones?

SM: I think for me it’s always been a balance, and I’ve never sought to be solely a commercial filmmaker. I think if commercial success is your only criterion then you’re going to struggle, you know? So my guess would be that I would return to something, perhaps a little less action based, having just done this. But I would certainly love to do something like this again in the future, and something on this scale, because on the whole I’ve loved it. It’s been a wonderful journey.

N: Did you always wanted to direct a Bond film? Was that a fantasy?

SM: No. No! Because I never even had fantasies that I would be a director, let alone a Bond director. And then when I started directing, Bond meant something different to me at that point. I wasn’t so interested. It was when my friend Daniel started playing Bond that I got interested. It’s worth saying at this point that I could never have made this film without Martin Campbell and Casino Royale. Because they did the really difficult job, which was to level the playing field again, to take away pastiche, take away self-referential humor, and make him a more serious character again.

N: There is some good humor in this, though.

SM: Well, I say that – then it’s made it possible for us to reintroduce some of that again; reintroduce Q, reintroduce some of the humor.

N: Who was your favorite Bond before this, and what was your favorite Bond movie?

SM: My favorite Bond was Sean Connery, though I had a soft spot for Roger Moore, because he’s my first Bond in Live and Let Die. And my favorite Bond movie, to be honest with you, is Casino Royale, which I thought was fantastic.

Have you seen Skyfall yet? If so, what did you think? Sound off below, and let us know what directors you’d like to see take on Britain’s best in subsequent sequels. And if you enjoyed this article, consider signing up for Nerdist News to get more like it first thing every weekday morning.

]]>http://nerdist.com/interview-sam-mendes-revolutionary-road-to-directing-james-bond/feed/4AFI Fest 2012: “Rust and Bone,” “Ginger & Rosa”http://nerdist.com/afi-fest-2012-rust-and-bone-ginger-rosa/
http://nerdist.com/afi-fest-2012-rust-and-bone-ginger-rosa/#commentsSat, 10 Nov 2012 04:09:04 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=59163Rust and Bone is one of those movies that critics may well adore precisely because of one key trait – you rarely know what’s going to happen next. This is a trait that could be overrated by critics simply because we see so much, and become aware not only of the common cliches but the uncommon ones too, to the point where any film that can surprise us is a rare thing. For those who go to just a movie or two a year, and may not realize, for example, that in a big-budget action movie, any seemingly useless trivia dropped early on will always be key to saving the world later, this probably isn’t an issue.

That said, Rust and Bone is also an epic, but an emotional one – a journey of two broken people to become all of which they are truly capable after braving intense trials and navigating tough terrain… of the soul, not some alien planet. Matthias Schoenarts, best known as the bull-head from, uh, Bullhead, is Ali, a broke former boxer with mild criminal tendencies and a five year-old son in tow. Moving to Antibes to impinge upon his sister’s hospitality, he takes a job as a nightclub bouncer, where he saves beautiful, intelligent Stephanie (Marion Cotillard) from an unwarranted beatdown. Having thusly gotten off to a decent start, Ali blows it by telling her she’s dressed like a whore – though in a weird way, this demonstrates a positive lack of pretense on his part.

It turns out she’s an orca trainer at a marine theme park, and it isn’t long before a terrible accident leaves her permanently injured. Perhaps because he protected her once, or because he’s incapable of pretense, she calls Ali and the two bond – he engaging her in the kind of purely sexual relationship many men might dodge due to handicap-squeamishness, and she becoming his manager for unsanctioned backyard MMA fights. Meanwhile, as Ali’s caring for Stephanie grows, he becomes ever more irresponsible as a family man.

Much like The Sessions, the “handicapped” sex here often feels like a metaphor for the emotional handicaps we place upon ourselves as barriers to intimacy – since this is based on short fiction rather than The Sessions‘ true-life story, it’s safer to say that it’s the case here. Like that film, though, it delivers some of the hottest onscreen intimacy of the year, and not just because both leads are great-looking. It’s because the desire to be desirable, to feel anything, is universal – Ali fights like he fucks, in both cases needing to feel alive, and only when he has satiated this appetite can he move on to deeper connections. Stephanie is the reverse, enjoying being objectified for the first time in her life because she suddenly knows what it’s like not to be in most people’s eyes.

But this isn’t just a sex movie – Ali goes further into crime and alienation, and there’s a crucial scene near the end where the suspense is absolutely unbearable: it’s clear something bad is about to happen, and what it’s going to be… just not when director Jacques Audiard (A Prophet) is going to pull the trigger, and how hard he’s going to hit. And then – minor thematic spoiler – it hurts. Quite a bit. Which is not to imply that this whole movie is a downer – it’s about engaging the downers and feeling alive at the end. If your date’s okay with a movie that goes to some pretty dark places along the way, it’s a pretty great couples movie, even if it does reinforce the stereotype that even smart and sexy women will go for the musclehead every time. And it manages to use Katy Perry’s “Firework” better than any other movie to date, including the Katy Perry movie (I’m actually guessing on that last one, which I didn’t see. But I can’t imagine it could be better).

Less feel-good, on the other hand, is Ginger & Rosa, which not only packs a punch but made me actively want to punch the movie’s most despicable character, an irresponsible ’60s dad (Alessandro Nivola) who not only bangs his teenage daughter’s best friend, but then has the nerve to angrily justify it by talk of rebelling against conformity and comparisons to conscientious objection against the draft. Honestly, it’s difficult to review this one for others because the film in its own way has some uncanny parallels with my own life, even though I grew up in a different decade, am not a teenage girl, and neither parent slept with a friend of mine. Just so that’s out of the way.

Things open with a nuclear explosion and footage of Hiroshima in 1945, then cut to two mothers in England simultaneously giving birth. Their new daughters become friends, though Ginger’s mother Nat (Christina Hendricks, looking uncomfortably like she’s had some work done) is concerned that the more rebellious Rosa (impressive newcomer Alice Englert, holding her own against many more acclaimed folks)), whose dad long ago abandoned the family, is a bad example for Ginger (Elle Fanning), whose actual name is something else entirely but I won’t spoil that. That she has ginger hair is what gives her the name she’s known by.

For the rest of the story, we are in 1962, and the UK radio stations are endlessly going on about the prospects of nuclear war (they love to be pessimistic like that; ’twas just so in the ’80s when I was growing up as well). And if you can tell that by the end of the movie the Cuban Missile Crisis will come into play, well, then you not only know your dates but you’re also clearly one of the more frequent moviegoers alluded to up top.

The parents’ generation also includes Ginger’s apparently gay godfather (Timothy Spall) and secondary American godfather (Oliver Platt) who may be godfather #1’s lover, or that of radical feminist May (Annette Bening), or both. The movie doesn’t bother to tell, and the only reason we’d ask is to clarify the point in a review. Since it’s the ’60s onscreen, one can and should assume anything goes. And director Sally Potter isn’t monolithically opposed to this, though it’s easy to say how some on the right could consider it a tale sympathetic to their cause: Nivola’s irresponsible Roland was a conscientious objector even in the “good” war that was WWII and did time for it, while Spall’s equally pacifist character opted to drive an ambulance as alternative service; and it’s clear the “anything goes” atmosphere causes little but hurt to the extent that it defies essential family ingredients.

As for the nuclear issue, it is made clear that Ginger’s overwhelming fear may be rooted in more mundane anxiety about her family falling to pieces – she tries turning to prayer for this, while Rosa insists that nothing can be done and true love should be sought instead, even as her adolescent concept of true love proves easily manipulated by older academics. I should note that I can strongly relate to some of this, though the full details would be a distraction here. It is infuriating to see adults who should know better casually stoking fears rather than defusing them; all their talk of letting children think for themselves is lip-service in the face of using the two girls – sometimes subconsciously, other times not – in furtherance of grown-up agendas.

I don’t know how autobiographical this is to Potter, and I don’t wish to look it up because I don’t want it to influence me one way or the other – I know, for example that Fanning and Hendricks don’t usually speak in English accents, but I’d never guess it by watching. It all feels true, and there’s no need to ruin that by saying if it is or isn’t.

Just don’t look for it to end as cleanly as the Cold War. That proved to be a waste of worrying in the end, didn’t it? Ginger & Rosa does not.

]]>http://nerdist.com/afi-fest-2012-rust-and-bone-ginger-rosa/feed/0Interview: The “Human Nature” of Patton Oswalt, Todd Rohal and Rob Rigglehttp://nerdist.com/interview-the-human-nature-of-patton-oswalt-todd-rohal-and-rob-riggle/
http://nerdist.com/interview-the-human-nature-of-patton-oswalt-todd-rohal-and-rob-riggle/#commentsThu, 08 Nov 2012 15:00:00 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=58812Patton Oswalt is a Boy Scout. Really. In the new movie Nature Calls, at least. As a troop leader looking to take his senile dad on one last camping trip – along with a group of kids who think they’re too jaded for this sort of thing – he finds himself at odds with older brother Johnny Knoxville and his rowdy pal Rob Riggle. In this new movie directed by Todd Rohal (The Catechism Cataclysm), the cast may be populated with comics – Darrell Hammond and the late Patrice O’ Neal also appear – but the humor gets periodically quite dark. When you’re in a room talking to Oswalt, Rohal and Riggle all at once, however, it’s a lively affair to say the least. Here’s our “scouting” report:

Patton Oswalt: I was very briefly a Boy Scout; I wanted to be, it wasn’t for me, so I stopped. You [pointing at Riggle]!

Rob Riggle: I was a Cub Scout: made it to Webelos – the bridge between Cub Scout and Boy Scout; it’s a little tiny phase – and then… I had to make a choice, because my parents were like, “You’re gonna play sports or you’re gonna be a Scout – you can’t do both.” So I stopped at being a Cub Scout.

PO: So you had your wolf and bear.

RR: Bobcat, wolf and bear.

PO: I had bobcat. Wolf was the first one you get, right?

RR: Bobcat’s first.

PO: So I had bobcat and wolf, and then when I was doing bear badge I just realized, I don’t wanna learn about American folklore. I just kinda stopped, so that’s all I had.

RR: I can tie my shoes; I don’t need to know all those knots. I got enough.

Todd Rohal: Yeah, I was late coming to it. When these guys had figured it out, I joined up late. I was in there for a few years until it got dirty, with, like, what this story’s based on, ’till we started fighting with these adults.

N: It seems like the stereotype of Scouts that’s out there is that they’re very traditional, rigid and conservative. Was there a concerted effort to undermine that and say, “No, it’s actually kinda weird”?

TR: Our Scout Leader was a fix-it man, so he did it professionally in Columbus, Ohio, if that say anything. I don’t think any fix-it man has ever been called conservative. He drove a dirty van, he fit the profile of “Do not leave your children with…”

PO: Potential serial killer.

TR: And yeah, he was the one that pulled this first-aid test where they faked the death of a Scout Master to us and we thought it was real. That’s where this whole thing was sparked from. It was from a guy that was a total fuck-up.

N: So that part was real. Were the other scenes drawn from reality as well?

TR: That was the basis of it, yeah, and so we riffed on that, and had little things come from other places, but that was the genesis of the idea.

N: I wouldn’t normally ask this, but given the actor in question… Did Johnny Knoxville actually set himself on fire?

TR: He couldn’t! He’s got so many… I don’t think there’s an insurance company in the world that’ll let him anywhere near a flame that’s bigger than a butane lighter.

RR: He wanted to.

PO: He was game to do anything, but they were like, NOPE, that’s done. Not doing that any more.

N: Let me ask all of you about the tone, because there’s some broad comedy, some drama, some dark stuff, and that feels a lot more like real life, but it also feels like it might have been something more difficult to market. How tricky was it to maintain that balance?

TR: Well, when I’m writing a movie, I don’t think about the marketing plan that’s gonna be coming down the pipe, certainly. That’s for everybody else, all 55 producers working on the movie can talk about marketing plans forever. But I think what’s interesting in movies is when you have tones that can go for something that’s really funny, or really dark, or a weird messed-up image… like [SPOILER WARNING] having Johnny Knoxville show up on a cross was a big accomplishment for me, just to put that in a movie, and have a guy who gets crucified but that’s a happy ending. Like if we can pull that off in a movie, that’s what I wanna shoot for. [END SPOILER] Something that’s messed up, something that’s funny, something that’s strange and tonally different.

N: And for you guys playing the characters, how tricky was the tonal balance, or was it at all?

PO: It was more scene for scene with us, and the tonal balance, that’s up to the director and the editor later. you just try to be true to each scene, as true as you can. It’s like a director thinking about marketing; if I’m thinking, “What’s the tone?” – you’re gonna see that in my performance and it’ll mess up the performance. I just went with each scene and how it had to be.

N: In terms of playing it broadly comedic versus more serious, would you approach it the same way?

PO: Ahhh…I just try to make every role human. I mean, I don’t think anyone in this movie was even being all that broad. I’ve seen people like Rob’s character. I’ve seen people like Johnny Knoxville’s character. Those didn’t seem all that broad to me; I’ve seen those extremes. You always look for the antics, but humanity lives in those extremes. That’s there.

N: We’ve seen, certainly, in your recent movies – Young Adult was one of our favorite movies of last year; we gave it the “Golden Geek” award for best geek actor…

PO: WHAT?

N: Yep.

PO: I was never sent a statue. [Rohal and Riggle applaud]

N: It’s like the Marvel No-Prize, I think.

PO: [laughs loudly, knowingly] The No-Prize. Wow!

N: You seem really comfortable in these movies that mix drama and comedy. Are you looking to transition into full-fledged drama, or is this a good comfort zone for you?

PO: I’m always looking to do whatever is really, really good. And “good and interesting,” is, I think, outside of genre. It can be drama, it can be science fiction, it can be animated. I just read the script and if there’s something there that I haven’t seen somewhere before or if it harkens back to something that I’m into, I think that’s what I wanna do. So in other words, I’m never going, “Okay, I’ve done two dramas, so I should probably do three comedies and then….” I think that’s a really artificial way to proceed in your career and it makes you ignore a lot of what could be really great stuff. What if the next ten movies I do just happen to be these ten horror movie scripts that are the best-written, best character – and I would do them. And I wouldn’t go, “I’m a horror-movie actor!”, I’d just be like, those are the best scripts I was given. I’m gonna go with this.

N: Rob, same question – we mostly see you in comedies. Are you looking to branch out into other genres?

RR: I’m kinda the same thing as Patton. As described, I would love to work on things that excite me, whatever form that takes. And if it takes drama, comedy, horror films, whatever it is, if it’s something that turns me on, something I find unique and interesting, I’d love a shot at it. And then you asked a question earlier with regard to this character for this movie: it was pretty broad, in one sense. But like Patton said, I’ve met people in my life who are like this guy and whenever I run into these people, I study them and I try to remember them so that later on I can do things like I do in this movie.

PO: To anyone who thinks Rob is being too broad, all I can say is go on YouTube. Spend five minutes, and you’ll be saying that was actually subtle compared to some of the people that are out there.

TR: Google “Jack Rebney.”

PO: Ohh! Exactly.

TR: Winnebago Man.

RR: I saw the clips of that guy. That was gold. That was really gold.

N: You mentioned earlier the restrictions on Johnny Knoxville. Are there also restrictions working with kids on an R-rated movie like this, like people telling you not to swear on set and stuff?

TR: No, they were, “Just go for it.” This is my advice to filmmakers: if you want to cuss in front of little kids, get into movies.

PO: That’s why most people get into movies. It’s a weird high. It’s a really cool high.

RR: Of a very specific nature.

TR: There were a lot of discussions before with parents, that cover everything you’re gonna do and they read the script so there’s no surprises. But otherwise, yeah, it was really like those kids were psyched every time.

RR: They loved it.

PO: And those scenes were funny, and the parents liked seeing their kids get to do something funny, so you just work out. It was great.

N: Was it hard getting this great cast together, or was it just as easy as getting the script around?

TR: Patton was the first one we wanted, and Riggle was next, so it was just like, let’s go do this. In that case it’s easy, but it’s not easy to put a movie together.

RR: I liked Todd’s passion for it. I was shooting something, and I got done at midnight. And that’s when he went, “Okay, so I’m ready to meet.” So we went and met, like, at midnight at a Mexican restaurant, had nachos and beer and talked about the thing, and just hearing him talk about it passionately, and the fact that he was ready to meet at midnight was like oh, well this guy’s dedicated to this movie and he’s passionate about it. I dig that. That’s what makes me want to get involved.

N: Is it hard to watch Patrice O’Neal in this now?

TR: You know the funny thing – I talked to his wife about this – was that in the movie Patrice has one outfit, and every time he was on set, he showed up in that outfit. So I know Patrice as that guy who sat and did stand-up for two and a half hours with me on the couch when we talked about the role; one of the funniest personal performances I’ve ever had – I said three things in that entire time. Then he was on set in this outfit, and he left on the last day, shot the last thing with you two, and you guys got in the car and drove off, and that’s the last time I saw Patrice. Then I get in the editing room and I’m watching him every day in that same outfit, and the news came in as things were happening with him, but he’s still right there and it’s just as real. I mean, it was a really surreal thing; I couldn’t disconnect from, “this is the guy I know, and he’s on the screen,” and there’s this other person who’s out there going through this struggle that has a separate life, or is a separate being, and it’s a really strange thing to just know someone as a role. And that’s my relationship with him, and it’s funny to miss somebody as that role just to know him as that, but it was his heart. When I got the call about him I was working on a scene near the end and it was a weird moment. But then you get to hear all these stories about what happened on set; we were just talking about some in here.

RR: When you put me in the car that night, when we said goodbye to you on the last day of shooting, Patrice and I spent an hour rolling back to the city, same routine as always – he talks, I listen, hilarious – then we went back to town and had dinner, because it was the end of the movie, wrap. Had a great night. Really just talked, very, I don’t want to say intimately, but we had just a wonderful conversation, it was so enjoyable. And that was the last time I ever saw him. And it was really sad, because he had just done the Charlie Sheen roast and was kinda on a high from that, just feeling good, and I was happy to see him feeling good. It was sad.

PO: It’s not difficult for me to watch him in this movie because he’s working and he’s having fun – he was funny on the set. What’s difficult for me, like when any comedian dies, Greg Giraldo or Mitch Hedberg, is that this guy’s not gonna be around to comment on THIS… the crazier our world gets, “Oh, so they’re not going to be around to talk about this?” That sucks. That’s what sucks for me.

N: Real quick – Pixar’s been making a lot of sequels lately. Are they talking Ratatouille 2?

PO: I will be the last to know. If that happens, I’ll be the last person they tell. But Brad Bird is very anti-sequel, so we’ll see.

Nature Calls opens Friday in theaters. If you enjoyed this article, consider signing up for Nerdist News to get more like it first thing every weekday morning.

]]>http://nerdist.com/interview-the-human-nature-of-patton-oswalt-todd-rohal-and-rob-riggle/feed/0Figures & Speech Exclusive Reveal: “Miami Connection” Action Figureshttp://nerdist.com/figures-speech-exclusive-reveal-miami-connection-action-figures/
http://nerdist.com/figures-speech-exclusive-reveal-miami-connection-action-figures/#commentsWed, 07 Nov 2012 20:00:28 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=59080Miami Connection is the new cult obsession in the making – a recently unearthed 1987 martial-arts film starring a Florida Tae Kwon Do master who really had no business being onscreen, from a director with no apparent understanding of character, pacing or plot… but, we’ll admit, a pretty decent eye for cinematography. Throw in some long and pointless musical numbers that are gloriously terrible, even by ’80s standards, and frankly the average viewer might begin to suspect the whole thing’s a put-on. As far as we can tell, it isn’t – star Y.K. Kim may look like a middle-aged man playing a teen in the movie, but nowadays he looks like a much older man in remarkable health. He also doesn’t butcher the English language quite as gleefully as he used to.

When it comes to this sort of thing, bad is good, and Drafthouse Films knows it. Here’s a taste of how they’re promoting the movie:

]]>http://nerdist.com/figures-speech-exclusive-reveal-miami-connection-action-figures/feed/4Interview: John Carpenter on Reviving “They Live”http://nerdist.com/interview-john-carpenter-on-reviving-they-live/
http://nerdist.com/interview-john-carpenter-on-reviving-they-live/#commentsTue, 06 Nov 2012 14:00:59 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=58992You probably haven’t been able to turn on your TV lately without seeing a barrage of ads telling you how to vote today, or suggesting what you should buy. In the world of John Carpenter’s 1988 cult classic They Live, being released on Blu-ray today by Shout! Factory, these messages aren’t confined to the screen in your living room but exist everywhere, masterminding your consumption habits. (We, on the other hand, don’t have to persuade you to buy anything, as we’re giving away five copies of said Blu-ray absolutely free; get bonus entries at our Facebook, Twitter and Google+ pages) The interview we also got with John Carpenter? Free to read as well. So check it out at your leisure below, if you so choose. And don’t forget to vote today.

Nerdist: It occurs to us that if you were doing They Live today, the aliens are actually too subtle. Nowadays, they’d have their own network and their own pundits blatantly advocating for what they were doing.

John Carpenter: You might be right about that. You might be right. It is true.

N: If you were making a movie of this sort again, do you think there would be a lot of changes to their approach?

JC: If I were going to make that movie today, and it hadn’t been made, I would update it – I would bring it into the new century and change some of the tenor of it, but no – the basic narrative would remain exactly the same.

N: Has Shepard Fairey [the guerilla artist known for his “Obey” images of Andre the Giant and Obama “Hope” poster] ever thanked you for basically inspiring his entire career with this movie?

JC: No, not really, but that’s okay. That’s all right.

N: It’s interesting that with the “Hope” image, he was using the imagery but giving it an opposite meaning.

JC: A touch, yeah. But that’s okay; that’s really good. I like it.

N: I remember when I first saw this movie, thinking that this was the sort of role John Carpenter would normally cast Kurt Russell in. Was there ever any thought of that, or was it always Roddy Piper?

JC: No, you see, in this particular case, what I really needed was an everyman. I needed a working-poor guy who was not upper-middle class, he was not middle class; he was somebody almost down and out. And Roddy was perfect for that; just absolutely perfect, so I never thought of anybody else, really.

N: You met with him at WrestleMania III. Were you specifically looking to cast him at that point, or were you just meeting him?

JC: I just met him there. I went as a fan; a wrestling fan. His manager at the time, David Wolfe, got a hold of me and said, “You wanna meet Roddy and think about this movie?” I said, well, sure. So I met him, and he was a really nice guy. We hit it off well, you know, I had been a wrestling fan since I was a kid, so we had much to talk about, and Roddy was trying to make a move out of wrestling, trying to get into acting. So I agreed to meet him and he was very nice, and we just went from there.

N: Are you still a big wrestling fan?

JC: Not so much anymore. They gave up one of the key elements of wrestling, at least from the days that I knew it, was something called “kayfabe” [the pretense that everything in pro-wrestling is real], which is essentially… well, if you know the word, you know what it is.

N: Yes.

JC: It’s really a lifestyle, as Roddy described it to me; it’s a way of living. Since then — I needed that, to enjoy it, to really enjoy it, I needed that 10%. That was kind of taken away.

N: It’s interesting, there’s almost a parallel there with the plot of this movie. Nowadays, everyone has the sunglasses, and they see that it’s a show.

JC: Yeah, but it’s an awesome show! When I was young, I figured out what was going on, but I really loved it anyway. So there was no disillusionment or shock about it. Whereas with They Live, it would be a big f***ing deal to find all this out!

N: I think like everyone else, I went through that shock as a kid at about the age of 7 and then I got back to enjoying it again.

JC: You just have to recognize and applaud it for what it is, not for what it isn’t.

N: Would you ever have seen the day where a guy like The Rock would be a major mainstream movie star, and do you think you deserve some of the credit for showing that these guys can actually put in really good performances that translate to cinema?

JC: I don’t know if I deserve credit for it, but The Rock is very talented, so he deserves the career he has.

N: Would you ever work with Roddy again? It seems like you guys have such great chemistry on the commentary track that it sort of makes me wonder why you haven’t gotten together and done more.

JC: If the part is right, I’d love to work with him again. I had a great time. But it’s always about the part, and what can we do together, not just to work for the work’s sake.

N: The fight scene in this movie is pretty epic between him and Keith David; did his wrestling training come into play? Did he ever tell Keith to really hit him a little bit and do a little bit more full contact, or were there still rules about that, that you couldn’t incorporate anything of that sort?

JC: He sure came in handy! It’s an obvious asset for Roddy, and they rehearsed that fight for essentially a month and a half – roughly a month and a half. By the end, they were so conversant in the fight, they knew it inside and out, they were making contact with each other, like you said. They were hitting each other. But since they knew the fight, there was no injury whatsoever. Yeah, I’m proud of the fight. I like the fight a lot.

N: That’s certainly one of the things that people talk about the most. One of the others would of course be the bubblegum line. How did that one come about? Was that in the original script?

JC: It was in the original script, but it all belongs to Roddy, I have to give him complete credit for it. He had a notebook with him in which he would think up one-liners for his matches. And you know part of wrestling is the interview.

N: Yeah.

JC: So his character, his “Rowdy Piper” character, would taunt and insult and so forth, so he’d take a notebook with him, and he’d write the things he would think up. One of them was “I’ve come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass, and I’m all out of bubblegum.” There were others in there too, but that was the one that really jumped out. I believe that one was for, if I remember right, Playboy Buddy Rose.

N: Is it true that there were a couple of repurposed Ghostbusters props in They Live?

JC: I think so. Not that I was particularly aware of at the time, mind you, but I’ve looked at this one prop that these two policemen who were supposedly creatures had, and thought, wait a minute. That looks REAL familiar to me. So yeah, I believe there were.

N: Was it the same special effects house?

JC: Naw, it was low-budget, dude! I’d just rent it out. We couldn’t afford to make ’em.

N: You wouldn’t be able to shoot downtown on a low budget nowadays.

JC: Well, we had a few tricks up our sleeves; we were able to pull it off. That was all legit.

N: Tell me a little bit about the source material for the movie.

JC: This was back in the ’80s, and I’d embarked on this making-low-budget-films again situation. I had scoured some comic books – I’d always loved comics – and there was, I can’t remember the name of the comic title now, but I read this comic based on [the short story] “Eight O’Clock in the Morning” by Ray Nelson; this kinda came before I had fully figured out my story, and I was still in the beginning stages, figuring it out, and it was a really neat little hidden-reality story, essentially. In his version, humanity was hypnotized, almost as if you go up on stage and see a stage hypnotist, and I thought, ehh, that’s kinda corny, so I changed it to a radio frequency to disguise real reality. But I thought, well, this is close enough – I’m gonna use his story.

N: And you used a Lovecraft-inspired pseudonym [Frank Armitage, a character from The Dunwich Horror].

JC: Oh yeah, just because I love Lovecraft. No reason.

N: We’ve seen a whole lot of properties of yours get remakes/reboots in recent years. Has there been talk of anything with this one?

JC: I shouldn’t comment on that stuff. I didn’t direct them. I don’t know; I wasn’t in charge of them. Nobody asked me about ’em, so I won’t comment.

N: We’re guessing you may not want to comment on this either, but on the They Live commentary track, you said there are some of your own films that you don’t like… can you reveal any?

JC: I cannot do that for you. Sorry.

N: I had to try.

JC: I’m sworn to secrecy.

N: Can you tell us what you’re working on next?

JC: I’ve got a couple of ideas stewing around. I’m working on this comic-book property, Darkchylde…

N: Nice.

JC: We’ll see if it gets to fruition. These days sometimes it’s difficult to get movies made, but you never know… A couple of TV show maybes; it’s all maybes at this point. What I’m really excited about – TRULY excited – is that last night, my Los Angeles Lakers won their first game, and they look great this year. I’m excited about the NBA. If you know anything about me, you know I’m an addict for basketball and I’m a big-time gamer.

N: What games are you excited by right now?

JC: Well, I will tell you I was horribly disappointed by Assassin’s Creed III. My God! Really? There’s a whole section where you go hunting? I dunno. I’m playing Dishonored, which I like a lot. I think it’s a really cool game.

N: Do you have any interest in maybe creating video games?

JC: Sure! If somebody pays me to do it, I’ll be glad to.

N: Let’s hope someone reads this who can make that happen. Well, thank you, John, and I really look forward to maybe a big bells-and-whistles Blu-ray of In the Mouth of Madness.

JC:In the Mouth of Madness, really? Well, sure, if they wanna make it, they can make it. I don’t think they will, though. That movie was not a big hit.

N: It’s not just my favorite of yours; quite a few writers I know say it’s their favorite too.

JC: Well, see, there ya go.

N: I’d love to hear a new commentary track, because the DVD one focused so much on just the lighting.

JC: Well, okay, but I had a cameraman with me, so you understand why!

—-

They Live is out on Blu-ray today; enter to win one of five copies at our contest page, then bolster your odds with extra shots at our Facebook, Twitter and Google+ pages. Nothing subliminal here; enter by November 12th, 2012, or you’ll get shut out when the contest ends. If you enjoyed this article, consider signing up for Nerdist News to get more like it first thing every weekday morning.